This second volume opens in August 1914, as crowds cheer the war. Zweig, for his part, refuses to hate: he works in the military archives, then joins his friend Romain Rolland in Switzerland. He goes on to tell of the fall of Austria, the inflation that ruins families, the rise of Nazism and his exile in London.
It is the testimony of a great European writer who watches his world disappear. It helps us understand how a cultured and peaceful society could tip into war and barbarism.
With the translation always in front of you, you can read these memoirs in the language you are learning.
