Nietzsche’s thought contains a multitude of entrances and exits. Many of the prominent disagreements about the meaning of his corpus actually hinge on the different places that his readers decide to enter and leave it. When exploring his thinking about Europe, however, the best starting point is undoubtedly his detailed discussion of the emergence of nihilism, or meaninglessness, in European culture following the ‘death of God’. This discussion of European nihilism retains immense pertinence for the contemporary debate on ‘Europe’ by virtue of three of its facets. First, it was in the context of this insightful and original discussion that Nietzsche illustrated what the European idea meant in the past, why this past idea of ‘Europe’ is no longer credible on a widespread basis, and why it remains so difficult to articulate a new and compelling vision of Europe within the cultural configuration of European modernity. Second, by casting the question of Europe within the wider context of secularization, Nietzsche’s discussion of European nihilism also renders intelligible many aspects of the current debate noted in the introduction, including why many Europeans continue to demand the articulation of a more meaningful idea of Europe, and why the inability to formulate such an idea frequently culminates in deep pessimism about Europe’s spiritual vitality. In these two ways Nietzsche’s analysis of European nihilism allows for a much more subtle understanding of why it continues to prove so difficult to articulate a more meaningful idea of Europe today. Finally, Nietzsche’s analysis of European nihilism remains crucial for the contemporary debate on the European idea because an intimate engagement with the deeper dimension of this experience of meaninglessness also formed the constitutive moment for Nietzsche’s own vision of what it would mean to be a ‘good European’.1 It is only possible to fully grasp Nietzsche’s way of thinking about the European idea if the deeper implications of his analysis of European nihilism are first understood.