War and Peace is an epic novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. It was published in separate parts from 1865 to 1869 and issued in complete form in 1869. The novel is a panoramic picture of Russian society from 1805 to 1820 and ranks among the great works of world literature.
War and Peace is a realistic family chronicle. It follows five families as they progress through universal experiences and stages of life that always concerned Tolstoy—birth, growing up, marriage, sex, childbirth, maturity, old age, and death. The work is also a brilliant historical novel, describing the political and military events that occurred in Europe beginning in 1805. It focuses particularly on the invasion of Russia by Napoleon I in 1812. Tolstoy provided one of the best set pieces of writing on war ever recorded, a brilliant depiction of the Battle of Borodino during Napoleon’s advance toward Moscow. The novel includes more than 500 characters, from national leaders to peasants. The three main characters are the heroine Natasha Rostova and the two men who love her, Prince Andre Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov.
In War and Peace, Tolstoy alternated narrative portions with historical and philosophical reflections. He believed that prominent people or heroes actually have no significant impact on the course of history. Instead, history is the slow accumulation of actions and decisions made by thousands of different individuals in regard to thousands of different circumstances.
