“Max Scheler (1874-1928), by testimony of almost all contemporary European philosophers, was one of the most brilliant thinkers in our century. As Heidegger once put it, there is no present day philosopher who is not indebted to him. Others agreed with the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset who wrote that with the sudden death of Scheler, Europe had lost one of its greatest minds it ever had. Whereas his name was in circulation everywhere during the twenties, including in Asia and the Americas, his fame faded away like a comet after his demise at the age of fifty-four. He left behind many printed works and thousands of posthumous manuscripts, all of which material was suppressed by the German Nazi-regime during 1933 and 1945. Publication of his works took only a slow start in 1954. So did translations of them. Among Max Scheler’s most intriguing early works dealing with the non-rational, emotional depths of human beings is his 1914 investigation into resentment, which increasingly marks the modern era. It was published first in 1912 under the German title, Über Ressentiment und moralisches Werturteil (Ressentiment and Moral Value-Judgment). In 1915 it went into an enlarged edition with the new title, Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (The Role of Ressentiment in the Make-Up of Morals). The present Louis A. Coser translation into English is made from the 1915 text.” — From the New Introduction by Manfred Frings.