Nihilsm dissected

FATHERS AND SONS treats Nihilism far more succinctly than any book I can think of and brought the idea to the ordinary mind through true to life characters that we can relate to. It is important because the ideas and methods of the most notorious Nihilists-Nechayev is considered to be very important by Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
Bazarov who is the hero of the novel, is skeptical of people, institutions, ideas, and all the other trappings of civilization and does not hide his willingness to go about bringing down what he rejects.
Friedrich Nietzsche put forward an argument that the corrosive effects of Nihilism would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. Nihilistic themes such as epistemological failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness--have preoccupied artists, social critics, and philosophers in the 20th century.
The fact that patterns of nihilism