Becoming Nietzsche is an essential book for understanding Nietzsche's philosophical genealogy from 1866 to 1868, a phase that is punctuated by the influence of Friedrich Lange and a surprising rejection of Schopenhauer's theory of the will. During this phase, Nietzsche focuses on the scientific and artistic status of teleological judgments and their relevance for thinking about organic life and representation. Paul A. Swift deftly connects Nietzsche's philology with the development of his theory of human understanding by providing scholarly analysis and short original translations of Nietzsche's early work on Democritus, Schopenhauer, and Kant.