This rich, expansive book reaches beyond philosophy to literature and the history of ideas. Nihilism is associated most frequently with twentieth-century movements, but Jon Stewart shows that a tradition of nineteenth-century nihilism actually predated and anticipated developments like existentialis...

This rich, expansive book reaches beyond philosophy to literature and the history of ideas. Nihilism is associated most frequently with twentieth-century movements, but Jon Stewart shows that a tradition of nineteenth-century nihilism actually predated and anticipated developments like existentialism and postmodernism.