ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a narrative description of the development of Europe's culture into our time. It attempts to relate the tremendous event that Nietzsche invites to see underway, and to affirm his effort as a great first attempt to do so. The chapter discusses the central concern of Nietzsche's little story “The Madman”, the extraordinary text in which the “tremendous event” is first announced. The “tremendous event” of the death of God, cannot be understood simply like the death of something or someone within the world, or an event within the domain of everything that is. The greatest recent event – that “God is dead,” that the belief in the Christian god has become unbelievable – is already beginning to cast its first shadows over Europe.
