Hugo Drochon's Nietzsche's Great Politics is a well-written and well-argued account of Nietzsche's political vision that presents itself squarely within the tradition of Cambridge School intellectual history. As such, Drochon explicitly rejects interpretations of Nietzsche's political thought that start from the premise of normative democratic theory, but he also fully and rightly rejects any attempt to read Nietzsche's political ideas through the lens of his appropriation by the Nazi regime. Instead, Drochon's aim is to situate Nietzsche in the context of the nineteenth century, especially Imperial Germany, and he is correct in pointing out that the formative periods in Nietzsche's intellectual development roughly map onto Bismarck's government of Germany. Nietzsche's “visions of politics”—to use the title of Quentin Skinner's highly influential collection of essays that outline the program of Cambridge School intellectual history—are visions of “great politics” that seek to overcome the Machtpolitik of Bismarck's Reich, centered as it...
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