Heidegger's Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks
Despite a flood of recent works on Martin Heidegger and Nazism, there has been no sustained investigation of the shared themes that were the common ground between Heidegger's thought and that of the ideologists of National Socialism. In this lucid and fair-minded book, Charles Bambach reads Heidegger's writings from 1933 to 1945 in historical context. Bambach shows that Heidegger was engaged in a conversation with the National Socialists and others on the German right about the authentic mission of the German Volk, and that this theme was central to all of his thought.

Bambach depicts the development within Heidegger's work of a philosophy marked by a belief in rootedness in the homeland, the ground of ancestral kinship, and a notion of a privileged, originary connection to the ancient Greeks. Bambach makes clear that Heidegger's philosophical account of the history of the West is structured by a grand metaphysical vision of German destiny as something rooted in the soil. All of Heidegger's post-1933 works can, Bambach maintains, be read as arguments for a German form of racial-political autochthony.

An essential reference in the debates over one of the twentieth century's most influential—and controversial—philosophers, this book demonstrates the profound influence on Heidegger's work of both historical context and the other thinkers with whom he engaged in dialogue. These latter include not only the ancient Greeks and such German predecessors as Hegel, Hölderlin, and Nietzsche, but also those contemporaries of the radical right from whom he would later try to distance himself.

1124728429
Heidegger's Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks
Despite a flood of recent works on Martin Heidegger and Nazism, there has been no sustained investigation of the shared themes that were the common ground between Heidegger's thought and that of the ideologists of National Socialism. In this lucid and fair-minded book, Charles Bambach reads Heidegger's writings from 1933 to 1945 in historical context. Bambach shows that Heidegger was engaged in a conversation with the National Socialists and others on the German right about the authentic mission of the German Volk, and that this theme was central to all of his thought.

Bambach depicts the development within Heidegger's work of a philosophy marked by a belief in rootedness in the homeland, the ground of ancestral kinship, and a notion of a privileged, originary connection to the ancient Greeks. Bambach makes clear that Heidegger's philosophical account of the history of the West is structured by a grand metaphysical vision of German destiny as something rooted in the soil. All of Heidegger's post-1933 works can, Bambach maintains, be read as arguments for a German form of racial-political autochthony.

An essential reference in the debates over one of the twentieth century's most influential—and controversial—philosophers, this book demonstrates the profound influence on Heidegger's work of both historical context and the other thinkers with whom he engaged in dialogue. These latter include not only the ancient Greeks and such German predecessors as Hegel, Hölderlin, and Nietzsche, but also those contemporaries of the radical right from whom he would later try to distance himself.

56.95 Out Of Stock
Heidegger's Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks

Heidegger's Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks

by Charles R. Bambach
Heidegger's Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks

Heidegger's Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks

by Charles R. Bambach

Overview

Despite a flood of recent works on Martin Heidegger and Nazism, there has been no sustained investigation of the shared themes that were the common ground between Heidegger's thought and that of the ideologists of National Socialism. In this lucid and fair-minded book, Charles Bambach reads Heidegger's writings from 1933 to 1945 in historical context. Bambach shows that Heidegger was engaged in a conversation with the National Socialists and others on the German right about the authentic mission of the German Volk, and that this theme was central to all of his thought.

Bambach depicts the development within Heidegger's work of a philosophy marked by a belief in rootedness in the homeland, the ground of ancestral kinship, and a notion of a privileged, originary connection to the ancient Greeks. Bambach makes clear that Heidegger's philosophical account of the history of the West is structured by a grand metaphysical vision of German destiny as something rooted in the soil. All of Heidegger's post-1933 works can, Bambach maintains, be read as arguments for a German form of racial-political autochthony.

An essential reference in the debates over one of the twentieth century's most influential—and controversial—philosophers, this book demonstrates the profound influence on Heidegger's work of both historical context and the other thinkers with whom he engaged in dialogue. These latter include not only the ancient Greeks and such German predecessors as Hegel, Hölderlin, and Nietzsche, but also those contemporaries of the radical right from whom he would later try to distance himself.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780801440724
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Publication date: 03/11/2003
Series: 7/22/2008
Pages: 384
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.25(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Charles Bambach is Professor of the History of Ideas/Philosophy at the University of Texas, Dallas. He is author of Heidegger, Dilthey, and the Crisis of Historicism, also from Cornell.

What People are Saying About This

Russell Winslow

By way of a refreshingly clear and elegant prose styleöa quality so often lacking in the majority of secondary literature on HeideggeröBambach engages Heidegger's earlier philosophical propaedeutic by placing his works and language within their historical/political context.

Richard Wolin

Heidegger's Roots shows that Charles R. Bambach has an excellent awareness of the relevant political context—the German ideology of the early 1930s, when philosophers and others were jockeying for position in order to align themselves intellectually with Hitler's Brown Revolution. I know of no other work that shows so convincingly and in such relevant detail how, from 1929 on, Heidegger's philosophy was inextricably wedded to questions of contemporary politics and history. Bambach's writing style is uncommonly lucid and edifying—a rare and welcome virtue in Heidegger scholarship. Heidegger's Roots goes beyond the existing literature on 'Heidegger and the political' in ways that are refreshing and insightful. It is a book that will be taken seriously by political philosophers, intellectual historians, Germanists, and continental philosophers alike.

Choice Magazine

Although Bambach (Graduate Center, CUNY) has taken on a topic that has received a great deal of attention—Heidegger's personal and philosophical engagement with Nazism—he nonetheless present a valuable and fresh perspective on well-trodden terrain.... What is truly remarkable about Bambach's study is the refusal to rush judgment.... Bambach, instead, carefully places the relevant texts not only in the development of Heidegger's own thought but also within the larger context of the pro-fascist academic discourse of the time. The latter is particularly crucial, for it is only on the basis of a larger understanding of this discourse that Heidegger's own unique position becomes understandable. Summing Up: Highly Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Roderick Stackelberg

This is a scintillating work of intellectual history written with an understated eloquence, philosophical depth and subtlety, and close attention to historical detail. No previous book to my knowledge has provided such detailed contextualization of Heidegger's Denkweg during the Third Reich. This fascinating genealogy of Heidegger's mythology of being also has a lot to teach us about the appeal of National Socialism and the disconcerting coincidence of high culture and destructivity that has puzzled historians of Germany for so long.... That so high-minded, conscientious, and original a thinker could have been so convinced of the superiority of his own people's culture and of their mission to save the world, a judgment that turned out to be so terribly wrong, must give us all in twenty-first-century America pause.

Steven M. Stannish

Charles Bambach... contends that Heidegger drew on the ideas of freethinkers such as Friedrich Hölderlin and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as those of reactionaries like Oswald Spengler and Alfred Baeumler. The result was a personal form of national socialism. After World War II, Heidegger tried to conceal his dubious affiliations, but his philosophy remained exclusionary and ontologically racist.

From the B&N Reads Blog
Page 1 of

Related Subjects

Philosophy
Current Affairs & Politics
European & American Philosophy
Political Theory & Ideology
Major Branches of Philosophical Study
German Philosophy
Fascism
19th Century German Philosophy
20th Century German Philosophy
National Socialism
Political Philosophy
Political Theorists
Philosophy
Current Affairs & Politics
European & American Philosophy
Political Theory & Ideology
Major Branches of Philosophical Study
German Philosophy
Fascism
19th Century German Philosophy
20th Century German Philosophy
National Socialism
Political Philosophy
Political Theorists

Customer Reviews