Book excerpt: A century-and-a-half after his birth, Nietzsche's importance and relevance as a thinker is greater than ever before, and yet a major perspective on his life and work has been left untried: the psychological approach. Composing the Soul is the first study to pay sustained attention to Nietzsche as a psychologist and to examine the contours of his psychology in the context of his life and psychological makeup. Featuring all new translations of quotations from Nietzsche's writings, Composing the Soul reveals the profundity of Nietzsche's lifelong personal and intellectual struggles to come to grips with the soul. Extremely well-written, this landmark work makes Nietzsche's life and ideas accessible to any reader interested in this much misunderstood thinker.