Shooting Stars: 10 Historical Miniatures

Resumen del libro

Ten turning points in history, vividly sketched by the great Stefan Zweig "Such dramatically concentrated, such fateful hours, in which a timeless decision hangs on a single date, a single hour, even just a single minute, rarely occur in everyday life, and only rarely in the course of history." One of the twentieth century's great humanists and a hugely popular fiction writer, Stefan Zweig's historical works bring the past to life in brilliant Technicolor. This collection contains ten typically breathless and erudite dramatizations of some of the most tense and important episodes in human history. From General Grouchy's failure to intervene at Waterloo, to the miraculous resurrection of George Frideric Handel, this, Stefan Zweig's selection of historical turning points, newly translated by Anthea Bell, is idiosyncratic, fascinating and as always hugely readable.

Biografía del autor

Stefan Zweig es un bio grafo peculiar. Escoge personajes poco probables, figuras extremas, movidas por obsesiones y lacerantes contradicciones internas. Personajes que, como Fouche o Magallanes, se encuentran envueltos en momentos cruciales, cuyas decisiones desencadenan, de una forma u otra, consecuencias imprevisibles con repercusiones enormes. Tambie n la de otros, como von Kleist o Nietzsche, en cuya hondura, soledad y melancoli a parece que retrata Zweig la suya propia. En el caso de Nietzsche, el retrato de los tormentos del genio, el sentido moral con el que mira a la verdad, captan parte del drama interno del autor y del que este percibe en el destino de la Europa de posguerra que tiene ante si .