“Plainly, most reviews should not be taken very seriously.” This is Walter Kaufmann's judgment on the ethics of book reviewing, from one of his later works, The Future of the Humanities (1977; quoted here by Corngold). Who would dispute such an assessment, even in the present context? Book reviews are minor works that offer only the briefest reflections, so there is nothing particularly surprising about this statement. The only aspect of this pronouncement on the “meaning and importance” of reviews that one might find peculiar is that so much importance is placed on reviews in Corngold's book. Kaufmann's sensitivity to the way his work was received is a persistent sore spot throughout his career, and by the time he wrote The Future of the Humanities, he was disappointed, indignant, and felt betrayed by the humanities, and philosophy more specifically. One might also note that Corngold's study of Kaufmann is essentially a series of extended book reviews, reporting on what he considers most salient and valuable, while also dedicating significant space and energy to responding to reviewers and scholars who dismiss Kaufmann as something other than a philosopher or, at best, an unreliable one (this includes comments posted on Brian Leiter's blog, as well as amazon.com reviews and an anonymous online reviewer calling himself “Goosta,” alongside the thoughts of eminent philosophers like Karl Jaspers, whose assessment, “how little Kaufmann understands of philosophy,” provoked diatribes against Jaspers in Kaufmann's work). The first chapter offers an account of Kaufmann's Nietzsche book, but there is also a postscript, which attempts to answer critics of Kaufmann's Nietzsche, the work that made such an impression on the young Corngold that he begins this study with an anecdote about being accused of “wasting” his time reading that book as a young naval cadet in 1954. “Ever since then, I have felt myself especially protective of this book, the author, and his subject.” Corngold's own book is clearly modeled on Kaufmann's Nietzsche, as one recognizes already in the subtitle, and Walter Kaufmann rings with admiration, as Corngold's explicit intention in writing is “to heighten the pleasure and instruction you will find in Kaufmann's work.”