In Russian, the book's name is "Voina i mir", which may mean "War and peace" but may also mean "War and society", since "peace" and "society" are homonyms in Russian. I just want to address one important issue - the book's name. Well, this review can be arbitrarily long, and I have to wrap up at some point. He claims that what really changes history is the amalgam of human actions, built from thousands, nay, millions of small decisions, desires and ambitions of the people. Contrary to the popular dogma that historical events are the result of actions of single notable persons (such as Napoleon or king Alexander), Tolstoy believes that such persons don't really cause events, but rather can only affect them in some ways once they are already in existence. The chief one is undoubtedly the question "What causes and shapes historical events?". I can't think of many authors who know how to present and develop their characters as well as Tolstoy.Īdditionally, the book presents plenty of interesting philosophical and scientific ("science of history") ideas. They are all, without exception, extremely believable and well developed. The characters in the book are various and present the different ideas Tolstoy tries to infuse into his narration. Tolstoy also presents the life in rural Russia a little, and the interrelations between the rich and the serfs, although he doesn't spend on this topic nearly as much as in Anna Karenina. The book provides a very interesting and in-depth glimpse into this unusual society by today's standards, somewhat modeled after, and thus similar to, other European societies (French, British, etc.). The other is the high Russian society of that time. Specific events of the war are highlighted with the participation of the book's main characters, like Andrey Bolkonsky, Nikolay Rostov and Pierre Bezoukhov. The characters of Napoleon and Kutuzov (the Russian army leader) take active part in the narration, with the lesser leaders (Bagration, de Tolli, Davoux) also getting enough attention to build a complete and interesting story. Tolstoy describes the wars, and in particular the battles of Austerlitz (1805) and Borodino (1812) in vivid detail and apparently very accurately from a historic point of view.
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