Ralph Waldo Emerson was a great moral philosopher. One of his principle contributions is the theory of self-reliance, a view of democratic individuality. 'Nietzsche was Emerson's best reader,' and George Kateb provides an accessible reading of Emerson that is friendly to the interests of Nietzsche and to later Nietzscheans such as Weber, Heidegger, Arendt, and Foucault.