While Nietzsche’s influence on philosophy, literature and art is beyond dispute, his influence on sociology is often called into question. A close textual analysis of Nietzsche’s works and those of important sociologists – Max and Alfred Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, Rosa Mayreder – provides the first comprehensive account of their study and use of Nietzsche’s writings. Above all, Nietzsche’s critique of modernity, morality and culture are shown to have had a decisive influence on the development of sociology and the work of its leading thinkers at the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th.