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School of Politics and International Relations

Book Launch: Beyond Tragedy and Eternal Peace by Jean-François Drolet

When: Thursday, November 25, 2021, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Where: The Hitchcock Theatre, Arts One Building, Room G.19, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Campus, London, E1 4NS

We're delighted to host the launch of Jean-François Drolet's new book 'Beyond Tragedy and Eternal Peace: Politics and International Relations in the Thought of Friedrich Nietzsche'.

The launch will be followed by a small drinks reception.

Panel: Prof. Kimberly Hutchings (QMUL), Prof. Christopher Coker (LSE)
Chair: Prof. David Williams (QMUL)

The event is sponsored by TheoryLAB

Buy the book

Synopsis

As a German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, philologist, and scholar of Latin and Greek, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche has exerted a profound influence on modern intellectual history. Beyond Tragedy and Eternal Peace provides an overview of his legacy, highlighting the synergy between his critique of metaphysics and his reflections on the politics and international relations of the late nineteenth century.

Jean-François Drolet exposes and analyzes Nietzsche's account of the political processes, institutions, and dominant ideologies shaping public life in Germany and Europe during the 1870s and 1880s. Nietzsche anticipated a new kind of politics, borne out of such events as the Franco-Prussian War, the unification of Germany under Bismarck, the advent of mass democracy, and the rise and transformation of European nationalism. Focusing on conflict and political violence, Drolet expertly reconstructs Nietzsche's fierce and continued critique of the nationalist, liberal, and socialist ideologies of his age, which the philosopher believed failed to grapple with the death of God and the crisis of European nihilism it engendered.

As this reconstructive interpretation reveals, Nietzsche's philosophy offers a powerful and still greatly underappreciated reckoning with the changing political practices, norms, and agencies that led to the momentous collapse of the European society of states during the early twentieth century.

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press ISBN: 9780228005605 Number of pages: 256 Dimensions: 229 x 152 mm

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