On The Uses and Abuses of History

’On the Uses and Abuses of History’ is a collection of book-cover scans of Friedrich Nietzsche’s seminal work ‘On The Uses and Abuses of History for Life’ (Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben); an essay that problematises different kinds of historian and the instrumentalisation of history. The essay itself has undergone a number of historical re-framings across the twentieth century. The artist book presents 22 German editions of the essay from 1924 to 2019 with accompanying notes outlining varying publishers, contributors and the inclusion of Introductions, Afterwords and Imagery. These textual appendages give insight into the ways in which Nietzsche’s work was appropriated in the pre and post war periods, leading up to a rehabilitation of his work in recent decades. The publication emerged from the project ‘The Nietzsche Memorial Hall‘.