This book explores Nietzsche's understanding of modern political culture and his position in the history of modern political thought.

Acknowledgements; Abbreviations and translations; Introduction; Part I. The Failure of Neohumanism: 1. Philologists, liberals, and the nation; 2. The Austro-Prussian War in Leipzig; 3. The demands of history; 4. Toward a cautious materialism; 5. Teleology and the laws of history; Part II. The Formation of Imperial Germany, Seen from Basel: 1. Intellectual culture in Basel; 2. The practice of cultural history; 3. The need for philosophical education; 4. The 'German Spirit' and the Franco-Prussian War; Part III. The Crisis of Historical Culture: 1. The crisis of historicism; 2. What is orientation in history?; 3. The political mobilization of myth; 4. 'The Soul of the Antiquarian'; 5. The impossible critical historian; Part IV. Political Lessons from Cultural Anthropology: 1. The view from outside; 2. Lessons from anthropology; 3. Metaphor, myth and cultural reality; 4. 'Survivals': religion and the state; 5. Political realism and the 'Free Spirit'; Part V. Geneology, Naturalism and the Political: 1. The path to geneology; 2. A natural history of moral communities; 3. Sovereign individuals and the ethic of responsibility; 4. The task of geneology; 5. 'To translate humanity back into nature'; Part VI. The Idea of Europe and the Limits of Geneology: 1. 'The creation of the European individual'; 2. Beyond the modern nation state; 3. Political realities in Imperial Germany; 4. Modernity and the limits of geneology.