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How can you convey the experience of living? Well, you can try; hundreds 
if not thousands have tried.
Great writers, great philosophers; recognised as such by contemporaries 
and added to the pantheon of greats.

Tolstoy was one of the greatest.

I was once in a car, being driven through Belgium, and the driver turned 
to us and said "that's where the battle of Waterloo was fought", as we 
hurtled down the motorway.
I looked where he pointed, and didn't see much; a shallow valley, filled 
with crops.

In later years I've read lots about that battle.

Tolstoy must have read about Borodino. About all the thousands of men 
who met there and fought. And he tried to capture it in both the lives 
of individuals and mass movements, together with a view from the 
political history of the leaders and generals.

Nowadays we seem to have abandoned "political history"; and settled on a 
belief that history can only be captured through individual experience; 
otherwise you step into the territory of prejudice and misrepresentation.

I must admit that I still see the battle of Waterloo through the eyes of 
the duke of Wellington; as he rides his horse along the ridge and visits 
all the various groups of troops. "He was everywhere" wrote one soldier.

Ed

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History Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> - 2024-11-17 20:10 +0000

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