Drawing on Zen as well as on Nietzsches thought and its ramifications in and for western culture, this book is a fervent call for a re-visioning of philosophy as vocation. The author is critical of the status quo and committed to intellectual integrity; the result is a creative and adventurous enterprise which is no longer exclusively identified with academia or with the methodology of logic. Filtered through Nietzsches hammer -- by which he sounded out gods old and new -- Buddhism in the West can avoid the pitfalls which emerged during its gestation period in the twentieth century: otherworldly spiritualism, conservatism, denial of the body. The philosophy of European Zen advocated by Manu Bazzano in 'Buddha is Dead: Nietzsche and the Dawn of European Zen' is an unconditional affirmation of living and dying to their fullest. It is an extraordinary fertile viewpoint that will be appreciated by all those who are interested in Eastern philosophy and religions, and who seek life-affirming wisdom.