Sabbatical

I've taken quite an extended leave of absence from posting on here since work life has been quite busy for the last few months. The upside is that I've also been able to get quite a bit of reading done. First off, I finally tackled War and Peace! Probably everyone knows the book is notorious for its length, which was also about all I knew about it for a long time. Then, a few years ago, I read How far from Austerlitz? by Alistair Horne, an excellent British historian who has written extensively about French history. The book provided a general history of the Napoleonic Era and I was struck by the frequency of the author's references to War and Peace when describing Napoleon's invasion of Russia and the resulting Battle of Borodino. Apparently, Tolstoy really did his homework on those parts of the novel, even traveling to battlefield sites to more accurately be able to describe the events he wrote about.

After finishing the book, I can only say that I highly recommend War and Peace to everyone. Do not be intimidated by its size! Like any good book, you'll be wishing it was longer by the time you get to the end. In my opinion, Tolstoy's great accomplishment in the book is not the depiction of historical events and battles, although those are good, rather it is his incredibly perceptive and detailed construction of characters. The man obviously had a great sense of people's character.

Last of all, I have discovered a new blog and writer that I am loving. Walter Russell Mead is not a Republican, in fact, according to his Wikipedia page, he voted for Obama. I'm willing to look past those things though, because he does seem to be someone who genuinely loves America and thinks deeply about the problems facing the country. He consistently posts absolutely excellent and thought-provoking essays on his blog. Most recently he has two posts about the death of the American Dream. He also had a great Memorial Day post about the Iraq War. So go check him out! (there's a link to his blog on my sidebar)