For more than forty years, Gianni Vattimo, one of Europe`s most important and influential philosophers, has been a leading participant in the postwar turn that has brought Nietzsche back to the center of philosophical enquiry. In this collection of his essays on the subject, which is a dialogue both with Nietzsche and with the Nietzschean tradition, Vattimo explores the German philosopher`s most important works and discusses his views on the Ubermensch, time, history, truth, hermeneutics, ethics, and aesthetics. He also presents a different, more “Italian” Nietzsche, one that diverges from German and French characterizations. Many contemporary French and poststructuralist philosophers offer literary or aesthetic readings of Nietzsche`s work that downplay its political import. Shaped by the revolutionary tradition of 1968, Vattimo`s interpretations take Nietzsche seriously as a political philosopher and argue for and defend his relevance to projects for social and political change. He emphasizes the hermeneutic aspect of Nietzsche`s philosophy, characterizing the Nietzschean project as a political hermeneutics.

Vattimo also grapples with Heidegger, a philosopher who has had a profound influence on the interpretation and understanding of Nietzsche. Vattimo examines Heidegger`s philosophy through its complex relationship to Nietzsche`s, and he produces a Heideggerian understanding of Nietzsche that paradoxically goes against Heidegger`s own readings of Nietzsche`s work. Heidegger believed Nietzsche was the ultimate metaphysician; Vattimo sees him as the founder of postmetaphysical philosophy.

Throughout these essays, Vattimo draws on and quotes extensively from fragments in Nietzsche`s notebooks, many of which have never before been translated into English. His writing is clear, elegant, and accessible, and, for the first time, Vattimo`s own intellectual developments, shifts, and continuities can be clearly discerned. The loyal testimony and unique perspective in Dialogue with Nietzsche makes a convincing case for another orientation in Nietzsche scholarship.