On the Genealogy of Morality

On the Genealogy of Morality

This book has been translated by Africa East

On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) is a book about the history of ethics and about interpretation. Nietzsche rewrites the former as a history of cruelty, exposing the central values of the Judaeo-Christian and liberal traditions – compassion, equality, justice – as the product of a brutal process of conditioning designed to domesticate the animal vitality of earlier cultures.

The result is a book which raises profoundly disquieting issues about the violence of both ethics and interpretation. Nietzsche questions moral certainties by showing that religion and science have no claim to absolute truth, before turning on his own arguments in order to call their very presuppositions into question.

The Genealogy is the most sustained of Nietzsche’s later works and offers one of the fullest expressions of his characteristic concerns.

This edition places his ideas within the cultural context of his own time and stresses the relevance of his work for a contemporary audience.

This new edition is the product of a collaboration between a Germanist and a philosopher who is also a Nietzsche scholar.

The translation strives not only to communicate a sense of Nietzsche’s style but also to convey his meaning accurately―and thus to be an important advance on previous translations of this work.

A superb set of notes ensures that Clark and Swensen’s Genealogy will become the new edition of choice for classroom use.

On the Genealogy of Morality