Intending to correct the popular image of Nietzsche as a lonely, maverick thinker who was misunderstood by his own generation, Robert Holub portrays Nietzsche not as the great emancipator of later epochs but as the great participator in his own right. By demonstrating Nietzsche's timeliness for the 19th century - through his influence in science, and his interest in social issues, for example - Holub presents a crucial new view of Nietzsche: that he was as much an historically bound person, with contemporaneous relevance, as he was a philosopher of timeless importance. Holub ignores none of Nietzche's writing, and also considers biographical details, letters to and from Nietzsche, and accounts written by his associates, in this important study of one of the most influential philosophers of the modern era.