War and Peace - L. N. Tolsto

Introduction by A. N. Wilson
Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read

Often called the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is at once an epic of
the Napoleonic Wars, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit.
Tolstoy's genius is seen clearly in the multitude of characters in this massive chronicle-all
of them fully realized and equally memorable. Out of this complex narrative emerges
a profound examination of the individual's place in the historical process, one that
makes it clear why Thomas Mann praised Tolstoy for his Homeric powers and placed
War and Peace in the same category as the Iliad: "To read him . . . is to find one' s way home . . . to everything within us that is fundamental and sane."