
I Am Dynamite!
A Life of Nietzsche
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Narrated by:
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Nicholas Guy Smith
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By:
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Sue Prideaux
About this listen
NEW YORK TIMES Editors’ Choice
THE TIMES BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR
WINNER OF THE HAWTHORNDEN PRIZE
A groundbreaking new biography of philosophy’s greatest iconoclast.
Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most enigmatic figures in philosophy, and his concepts - the Übermensch, the will to power, slave morality - have fundamentally reshaped our understanding of the human condition. But what do most people really know of Nietzsche - beyond the mustache, the scowl, and the lingering association with nihilism and fascism? Where do we place a thinker who was equally beloved by Albert Camus, Ayn Rand, Martin Buber, and Adolf Hitler?
Nietzsche wrote that all philosophy is autobiographical, and in this vividly compelling, myth-shattering biography, Sue Prideaux brings listeners into the world of this brilliant, eccentric, and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work. From his placid, devoutly Christian upbringing - overshadowed by the mysterious death of his father - through his teaching career, lonely philosophizing on high mountains, and heart-breaking descent into madness, Prideaux documents Nietzsche’s intellectual and emotional life with a novelist’s insight and sensitivity.
She also produces unforgettable portraits of the people who were most important to him, including Richard and Cosima Wagner; Lou Salomé, the femme fatale who broke his heart; and his sister, Elizabeth, a rabid German nationalist and anti-Semite who manipulated his texts and turned the Nietzsche archive into a destination for Nazi ideologues.
I Am Dynamite! is the essential biography for anyone seeking to understand history's most misunderstood philosopher.
©2018 Sue Prideaux (P)2018 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
- The Times Biography of the Year 2018
“An exemplary biography.... Nietzsche steps out of the mists of obfuscation and rumor, vividly evoked.... An attentive, scrupulous portrait.” (Parul Seghal, The New York Times)
“This vibrant account of Friedrich Nietzsche’s life is a searching portrait of the philosopher and a keen assessment of his work.... Nietzsche often worried that he would be misread and misused; that he was, and still is, underlines the value of clear-eyed interpretations such as this.” (The New Yorker)
"Prideaux’s biography is a strikingly original portrait of Nietzsche and beautifully written." (Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad)
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Story
Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely in Germany in the 1930s? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power? In this dramatic audiobook, Benjamin Carter Hett answers these questions, and the story he tells has disturbing resonances for our own time. Benjamin Carter Hett is one of America’s leading scholars of 20th-century Germany and a gifted storyteller whose portraits of the feckless politicians of the Weimar Republic show how fragile democracy can be when those in power do not respect it.
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I can't trust the author's account of these events
- By Example: Mark Twain on 11-10-19
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Time of the Magicians
- Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade that Reinvented Philosophy
- By: Wolfram Eilenberger, Shaun Whiteside
- Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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The year is 1919. The horror of the First World War is fresh for the protagonists of Time of the Magicians, each of whom finds himself at a crucial juncture. Benjamin is trying to flee his overbearing father and floundering in his academic career, living hand to mouth as a critic. Wittgenstein, by contrast, has dramatically decided to divest himself of the monumental fortune he stands to inherit, in search of spiritual clarity.
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Narrator butchers foreign many language quotations
- By William G. Brown on 08-31-20
By: Wolfram Eilenberger, and others
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Red Famine
- Stalin's War on Ukraine
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1929 Stalin launched his policy of agricultural collectivization - in effect a second Russian Revolution - which forced millions of peasants off their land and onto collective farms. The result was a catastrophic famine, the most lethal in European history. At least five million people died between 1931 and 1933 in the USSR. But instead of sending relief, the Soviet state made use of the catastrophe to rid itself of a political problem.
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Horrifying
- By Mendy on 01-21-18
By: Anne Applebaum
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Do the Work
- By: Steven Pressfield
- Narrated by: Steven Pressfield
- Length: 1 hr and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Could you be getting in your way of producing great work? Have you started a project but never finished? Would you like to do work that matters, but don't know where to start?The answer is Do the Work, a manifesto by best-selling author Steven Pressfield, that will show you that it’s not about better ideas, it’s about actually doing the work. Do the Work is a weapon against Resistance - a tool that will help you take action and successfully ship projects out the door.
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Powerhouse of Motivation
- By Sara on 08-02-14
Exceptional and Illuminating
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What a dynamite book!
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a biography as playful as its subject
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intellectual history of Europe at that time.
Brilliant and highly listenable
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He really was dynamite.
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Just great overall
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It all makes sense in the end
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great bio!
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Nietzsche denies both religion and Socratic rationalism (a method of systematic doubt in pursuit of truth) by arguing individuals have a right to determine life’s value and meaning, without resort to religion or tradition. Prideaux offers a comprehensive picture of a man on a mission. His mission is to disabuse human belief in a Supreme Being or societal tradition to solely rely on one’s own consciousness because that is all there is to life.
NIETZSCHE
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This biographer broke from a collection of facts by linking Nietzsche’s thought with his life by dissecting his writing as he was becoming through his life. Nietzsche is a poet who wrote in prose and aphorisms. Nietzsche writes his feelings with ideas such that others can open their eyes rather than remaining blind. That to me is a definition of a poet. I would even give Nietzsche the compliment of not being a philosopher, because Nietzsche can be understood and the definition of a philosopher almost certainly has ‘not being understandable by regular people’ in its definition (okay, I’m just kidding), and this biography goes a long way towards explaining what Nietzsche thought and why it’s just as important to today.
Nietzsche was barely known throughout his sane period of life. Almost from the point he lost his sanity is when his fame started to blossom. Nietzsche was incredibly anti anti-Semite. The biographer gives ample evidence for that. More importantly, and this is where the biography excels, once ‘God is dead’ where do we get our meaning? Nietzsche has a project and within a series of books that sell 100 or so copies per book during his sane lifetime he resolves that question, and not to ruin it for anyone, his answer is thrown back to his readers; it is for you to find your meaning. In Nietzsche’s ‘Ecce Homo’, one of the few autobiographies worth reading, he’ll say ‘I gave them the bait, but they refused to nibble’.
I would heartily recommend this book to anyone. I know I’ll continue my mission of reading more works of Nietzsche, but now I’ll understand the context and the meaning a little bit better than I would have if I had not read this biography. As Nietzsche said, ‘no one strives for happiness, except for an Englishman’; our real striving is for our meaning not the transitory feelings of happiness
Gives the bait, it's time to take a nibble
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