Rage and Time

Rage and Time: A Psychopolitical Investigation (German: Zorn und Zeit. Politisch-psychologischer Versuch) is a 2006 book by the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk. It traces the role and prevalence of rage in Western history, starting with the Thumos described by Homer in the Iliad. Sloterdijk argues that a productive form of rage has been suppressed by first Christianity and then psychoanalysis.

Rage and Time: A Psychopolitical Investigation

Cover of the first edition
Author	Peter Sloterdijk
Original title	Zorn und Zeit. Politisch-psychologischer Versuch
Translator	Mario Wenning
Language	German
Publisher	Suhrkamp Verlag
Publication date	September 2006
Publication place	Germany
Published in English	April 2010
Pages	356
ISBN	978-3-518-45990-4

An English translation by Mario Wenning was published in 2010.^[1]

Contents

• Rage transactions
• The wrathful god: the discovery of the metaphysical revenge bank
• The rage revolution: on the communist world bank of rage
• The dispersion of rage in the era of the center
• Conclusion: beyond resentment

Reception

Julia Encke of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described Sloterdijk as a "democratically thinking Nietzsche reader" due to his search for a rage free from ressentiment, stating that the book was "a first step" toward such a thing.^[2] Publishers Weekly called the book "a brilliant and conceptually rich analysis of the influence of rage on the development of Western culture". The critic continued: "Though frequently hampered by excessive academic jargon and a theoretically questionable oscillation between the non-equivalent notions of Thymos and rage, the book offers a fascinating account of the historical dynamics of social development".^[3]

The French translation of the book received the Prix européen de l'essai Charles Veillon in 2008.^[4]