War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace argues that nobody steers history, least of all the men who believe they do. From Anna Pavlovna Scherer's salon, where Prince Vasili Kuragin courts Pierre Bezukhov's inheritance, to Andrey Bolkonsky bleeding beneath the sky over Austerlitz, Tolstoy dismantles the illusion of control. Napoleon drowns in his own maps while Kutuzov dozes, retreats, and lets Moscow burn, trusting historical necessity and the Russian winter. Patience and time, not brilliance, decide the war.

You'll learn:

- Why micromanagement reveals arrogance, never intelligence

- How Kutuzov weaponised retreat against Napoleon's ego

- What Platon Karataev taught Pierre about true freedom