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War and Peace begins with a scene at a party in St. Petersburg in 1805. It is the Napoleonic era – the French general has conquered much of Western Europe and Russia is nervous. Russia is allied with the Austrian Empire which is resisting Napoleon’s forces along its borders. At the party the reader is introduced to the main characters including Pierre Bezukhov and Andrew Bolkonski and members of two families: Vasili, Anatole, and Helene Kuragin and Natasha, Sonya, and Nicholas Rostov. The plot is driven by the actions of the families – Andrew and Pierre join the Russian army at the Austrian Front, Nicholas almost gambles his family’s fortune away, and when Pierre returns home, he almost kills his wife’s lover. Andrew, missing in action on the Austrian Front, eventually returns home to find his wife has just died in childbirth. This annotated edition includes a biography and critical essay.
Tolstoy's epic novel is one of the most famous pieces of Russian literature and is on the short list of the most important works of literature in the world. This volume examines Tolstoy's unique achievement through a number of thought-provoking essays, and the interplay of the many genres of the text, including historical fiction, war drama, romance and realism.
War and Peace is considered one of the world’s greatest works of fiction. It is regarded, along with Anna Karenina, as Tolstoy’s finest literary achievement. Epic in scale, War and Peace delineates in graphic detail events leading up to Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families.
“This lively appreciation of one of the most intimidating and massive novels ever written should persuade many hesitant readers to try scaling the heights of War and Peace sooner rather than later” (Publishers Weekly). Considered by many critics the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is also one of the most feared. And at 1,500 pages, it’s no wonder why. Still, in July 2009 Newsweek put War and Peace at the top of its list of 100 great novels and a 2007 edition of the AARP Bulletin included the novel in their list of the top four books everybody should read by the age of fifty. A New York Times survey from 2009 identified Warand Peace as the world classic you’re most likely to find people reading on their subway commute to work. What might all those Newsweek devotees, senior citizens, and harried commuters see in a book about the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s? War and Peace is many things. It is a love story, a family saga, a war novel. But at its core it’s a novel about human beings attempting to create a meaningful life for themselves in a country torn apart by war, social change, political intrigue, and spiritual confusion. It is a mirror of our times. Give War and Peace a Chance takes readers on a journey through War and Peace that reframes their very understanding of what it means to live through troubled times and survive them. Touching on a broad range of topics, from courage to romance, parenting to death, Kaufman demonstrates how Tolstoy’s wisdom can help us live fuller, more meaningful lives. The ideal companion to War and Peace, this book “makes Tolstoy’s characters lively and palpable…and may well persuade readers to finally dive into one of the world’s most acclaimed—and daunting—novels” (Kirkus Reviews).
In 1812, Napoleon launched his fateful invasion of Russia. Five decades later, Leo Tolstoy published War and Peace, a fictional representation of the era that is one of the most celebrated novels in world literature. The novel contains a coherent (though much disputed) philosophy of history and portrays the history and military strategy of its time in a manner that offers lessons for the soldiers of today. To mark the two hundredth anniversary of the French invasion of Russia and acknowledge the importance of Tolstoy's novel for our historical memory of its central events, Rick McPeak and Donna Tussing Orwin have assembled a distinguished group of scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds-literary criticism, history, social science, and philosophy-to provide fresh readings of the novel. The essays in Tolstoy On War focus primarily on the novel's depictions of war and history, and the range of responses suggests that these remain inexhaustible topics of debate. The result is a volume that opens fruitful new avenues of understanding War and Peace while providing a range of perspectives and interpretations without parallel in the vast literature on the novel.
A “candid, courageous, and unsparing memoir” (The New York Review of Books) of post–Cold War politics and global statecraft Written with eloquence and unprecedented candor, Interventions is the story of Kofi Annan’s remarkable time at the center of the world stage. After forty years of service at the United Nations, Annan—who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001—shares his unique experiences during the terrorist attacks of September 11; the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan; the war between Israel, Hizbollah, and Lebanon; the brutal conflicts of Somalia, Rwanda, and Bosnia; and the geopolitical transformations following the end of the Cold War. A personal biography of global statecraft, Interventions is as much a memoir as a guide to world order—past, present, and future.
Presents an exploration of the authors and literary works that identify with the Golden Age of Russian literature, examining the prominent themes of the period.
Leo Tolstoy’s short story “Family Happiness” was published in 1859. The theme was the role of women in society. At the time of its creation, Tolstoy was not married, but wished to be. The letters he wrote to Valeria Arseneva, whom he was in love with at the time, reflect many of the sentiments and ideas that were expressed in the story. In his letters he spelled out in great detail what should be expected of a husband and wife in their marriage. Tolstoy is also thought to have been influenced by the works of two French writers, Proudhon and Michelet, who had recently published works on the same subject. “Family Happiness” is told in the first person by a woman (Masha) who has long been married. She relates her courtship, wedding, early happiness in her married state, estrangement from her husband, and an eventual reconciliation. The first part of the story is about her courtship by her future husband when she was only seventeen – her mother had just died and Masha becomes involved with her guardian, Sergei Mikhailych. Her account of this courtship is lyrical and romantic. Sergei tells Masha that happiness can only be found by “living for others”. He has very rigid ideas of what marriage should be, and what Masha’s role is. This annotated edition includes a biography and critical essay.