Decisive Moments in History

The factors that dictate and change the course of history are primarily the product of the contributions made by individual lives to the broad pattern of mortal existence. In his collection of "historical miniatures," Stefan Zweig celebrates the monumental power of the spirit to discover, to create, to transcend the limits imposed by the temporal and physical environment, while at the same time underlining man's inability to escape from the realities of his own nature.