Nietzsche’s Life Sentence: Coming to Terms with Eternal Recurrence

In this book Lawrence Hatab provides an accessible and provocative exploration of one of the best-known and still most puzzling aspects of Nietzsche’s thought: eternal recurrence, the claim that life endlessly repeats itself identically in every detail. Hatab argues that eternal recurrence can and should be read literally, in just the way Nietzsche described it in the texts. The book offers a readable treatment of most of the core topics in Nietzsche’s philosophy, all discussed in the light of the consummating effect of eternal recurrence. Although Nietzsche called eternal recurrence his most fundamental idea, most interpreters have found it problematic or needful of redescription in other terms. For this reason Hatab’s book is an important and challenging contribution to Nietzsche scholarship.