As anyone with a good understanding of Nietzsche's thought can see, the only possible title for a book which is more absurd and oxymoronic than "A Nietzschean Defense of Democracy" would be "A Christian Defense of Satanism." "Neo-Nietzscheans," like Professor Hatab, never fail to remind us of Nietzsche's contempt for the nationalists and racists who would later appropriate his ideas, yet they ignore the obvious fact that Nietzsche would feel no less disgust at his misuse by today's version of the scholarly oxen he loathed a century ago. Unless you want a calculated manipulation of Nietzsce's thought in order to justify the leftism of the average academic philosopher, do not read this book or any other book written by a "Neo-Nietzchean". Like all great philosophers, Nietzsche's thought is far too complex to be appropriated by an existing political ideology without blatantly contradicting much of what he wrote and stood for. If you want to know what Nietzsche really said, read Nietzsche and no one else.

This is a good companion book to Hatab's earlier Myth and Philosophy. These books are a good doorway not only into Nietzsche but into the thinking of many great philosophers. Ageless issues are put into contemporary terms through very accessible language. Mr. Hatab well integrates the past with the present, and speculates on where this legacy and our present interpretation of it will likely lead us in the future. I cannot yet locate his first book, Nietzshe and Eternal Recurrence, but hope to soon.

Nietzsche opposed the democracy he knew based on its underlying theories of Christian-derived egalitarianism of essence, but how does democracy as actually practiced stand up under Nietzschean criticism? As analyzed by Hatab, democracy not only stands its ground, but stands tall as perhaps the only viable way to achieve and maintain Nietzsche's agonistic, non-foundational hierarchy of merit.