World of Yesterday
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List Price: $19.95 $17.95 $ 2.00 ( 10% ) University of Nebraska Press Stefan Zweig
Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 838.91209EAN: 9780803252240ISBN: 0803252242Label: University of Nebraska PressManufacturer: University of Nebraska PressNumber Of Items: 1Number Of Pages: 455Publication Date: 1964-06Publisher: University of Nebraska PressStudio: University of Nebraska Press
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Editorial Reviews:
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: great but tragic memoirComment: Stefan Zweig writes a great memoir about the world before the Nazi Destruction of Europe. He was a true international person who tragically could not relate to the severe nationalism that swept the world. He felt comfortable in so many countries; unfortunately his own country disowned him and even though Brazil took him in, he did not have the desire to start over. His descriptions of famous personalities like Freud are the real strength of the book and make the book historically valuable.Customer Rating: Summary: An odd, curiously tendentious account....Comment: This is an interesting book, I grant, particularly for the period-view we get, and particularly since that period is so obscured from view by the enormity of the First World War and its consequences. It is more interesting for an in situ account of how the Austrian or other continental European, living in a centuries-old Empire, should come to regard "nationalism" as a distinct, distinctly evil thing. I say interesting because in fact nationalism simply means the sensibility that one lives in a nation, of which one is a citizen, rather than a monarchy, of which one is a subject - and the consequences which flow from that difference. We are still working them out, as Chou En Lai might say. But it is an especially curious misunderstanding since nationalism was really the RESULT of World War I - all those former provinces and dukedoms and prince-ipalities and colonies become autonomous states (from Czechoslovakia to Iraq) - not the cause. What Zweig and his intellectual brethren fail to acknowledge - more likely, do not want to admit - is that Germany was the aggressor, and Austria her sister in crime. Almost the entirety of subsequent discourse on European, even Modern political life - with all its ramifications for a development of an international political grammar - is in reality a gigantic evasion of this simple fact: German Militarism was to blame. Zweig stands at the dawn of this enterprise, resulting in the jump from "Empire!" to "Internationalism!" or Transnationlism, as epitomized by the intellectual left and UN-adorers, and its significance for the present ought to be obvious to anyone who watches the news. Unfortunately this successor sentiment, whether Communist or your typical Tranzi typically unaware of the provenance of his own ideas, serves political fanaticism equally well, as was demonstrated all throughout the world subsequent to (and largely as a consequence of) Zweig's war.
Customer Rating: Summary: By far my favorite bookComment: There is no better book that gives such deep, intimate insight into the Europe of 100 years ago, a Europe unrecognizable for today's man and yet the spring from which all events of this past century flowed. Truly beautiful, written with heartbreaking emotion and melancholy. Buy it!Customer Rating: Summary: Book ReviewComment: Zweig provides a unique account of early 20th Century Europe and the feelings of Europeans during two of the most important events in history - World War I and World War II. His references and descriptions to many of the European writers, musicians, etc... were not the reason I wanted to read the book, but it still was an entertaining read.Customer Rating: Summary: Reason in the age of BrutalityComment: This is a truly important book. Not only because Stefan Zweig is an intellectual of the highest calibre, but the manner in which he guides you through the years of fundamental change in Europe and the world. From the pre WW1 years of security and intellectual pursuit for a better world, united intellectually and artistically, to its pointless breakdown which gave the twin evils of communism and facism footholds, and kept Europe in fear, ignorance and false intellectualism until the fall of the Berlin Wall, although the shock waves have yet still to fade altogether.
