Description
Book Synopsis"Beautifully written and bursting with spirit, How to Read Like a Parasite is destined to be vital reading." - Matthew McManus, author of Nietzsche and the Politics of Reaction How to Read Like a Parasite overturns the whitewashed and defanged version of Nietzsche that has been made popular by generations of translators and academic philosophers who have presented his work as apolitical and without a core reactionary agenda. The central argument of the book is that Nietzsche’s philosophy does have a center, and that the left learns a great deal from Nietzsche when we read him as driven by a highly sophisticated reactionary political vision that informs all his major concepts and ideas. The most important Nietzschean concepts — from perspectivism, ressentiment, eternal return to the pathos of distance — are analyzed in the historical context in which Nietzsche lived and wrote, and several case-studies of prominent left-Nietzscheans from Jack London, Gilles Deleuze, Wendy Brown to Huey Newton are discussed. How to Read Like a Parasite makes a persuasive case for how we can overcome Nietzsche’s damaging influence on the left, showing us how to read and understand his work without becoming victims of it.
Trade Review“A compelling picture of the ways that Nietzscheanism hijacks the left.”
"Beautifully written and bursting with spirit, How to Read Like a Parasite is destined to be vital reading."
"Written with clarity and force, sensitive to historical context and covering an extensive array of the Nietzsche literature, this book animates a new standard in reading Nietzsche.”
"Exemplary... Tutt’s evaluation of the consequences of Nietzschean politics is more lucid than Left Nietzscheans might wish."
"Today, in our age of quick new Right or new Left dismissals, such a stance is needed more than ever."
"Tutt’s book sets a new standard for understanding how to read Nietzsche from the political left."
"The conclusion of How to Read Like a Parasite is that a ruthless, even “parasitical” critique of Nietzsche, who cannot be ignored but must be constantly confronted head on, is the key to overcoming the destruction of reason in our time."
