Tolstoy On War
Narrative Art and Historical Truth in "War and Peace"
- 256 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Tolstoy On War
Narrative Art and Historical Truth in "War and Peace"
About This Book
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 backgroundsâliterary criticism, history, social science, and philosophyâto 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.
Contributors: Alan Forrest, University of York; Andreas Herberg-Rothe, University of Applied Sciences, Fulda, Germany; Dominic Lieven, Trinity College, Cambridge University; Jeff Love, Clemson University; Alexander M. Martin, University of Notre Dame; Rick McPeak, United States Military Academy at West Point; Gary Saul Morson, Northwestern University;Donna Tussing Orwin, University of Toronto; Elizabeth D. Samet, United States Military Academy at West Point; Dan Ungurianu, Vassar College; David A. Welch, Balsillie School of International Affairs and University of Waterloo
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Table of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. Tolstoy on War, Russia, and Empire
- 2. The Use of Historical Sources in War and Peace
- 3. Moscow in 1812
- 4. The French at War
- 5. Symposium of Quotations
- 6. The Great Man in War and Peace
- 7. War and Peace from the Military Point of View
- 8. Tolstoy and Clausewitz
- 9. The Awful Poetry of War
- 10. Tolstoy and Clausewitz
- 11. The Disobediences of War and Peace
- 12. Tolstoy the International Relations Theorist
- War and Peace at West Point
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Contributors