War and Peace is great!

Tolstoy’s take on Great Man theory is interesting, because I think he goes a bit too far in the other direction, really explicitly talking about how history is kind of a random meandering of events. While I think his perspective is correct about the emergent complexity of events being unknowable is correct, I think he’s a bit too much of a fatalist about our own agency in shaping events.

it doesn’t seem to make any strong statements on the liberation of Russia’s peasantry I’m still trying to figure out some of Tolstoy’s ideas about Russian peasantry. Ana Karenina has a lot more extensive rumination on the subject, although a lot of it is framed through the perspective of Russian aristocracy. What surprised me about Tolstoy’s work was how much explicit discussion of communism and the future of society… although in retrospect, it makes sense, given that these were written only a few decades out from the revolution. Tolstoy definitely gave the subject some thought, but he wasn’t a secret communist or anything.

My favorite WTF part is when like 40 dudes accidentally drown themselves trying to impress their Waifu Bonaparte. I also get a chuckle out of how often Pierre gets scammed by Masons (he would definitely be one of those dudes posting his L’s on r/wallstreetbet)