The World of Yesterday (Volume 2)

The second volume opens in the first hours of August 1914, with cheering crowds and the loneliness of those who refuse. Zweig describes his work in the war archives, his stay in Switzerland near Romain Rolland, then the collapse of Austria and the inflation that emptied fortunes. National Socialism rises, exile in London follows, and with it the loss of his language and his readers. The volume explores war, the disappearance of a country and what exile does to a writer. Zweig finished these memoirs in Brazil, recording what had been lost.