Untimely Meditations

A set of four long essays written in the early 1870s. They criticise the complacent culture of the newly unified Germany, attack a popular theologian and writer, reflect on the uses and harms of history, and offer portraits of Schopenhauer and Wagner as models of independent thought.

The essay on history asks how much knowledge of the past a living culture can bear. Together they show the young Nietzsche's concern with education, culture and what it means to live well.