About this item
An intimate narrative history of World War I told through the stories of 20 men and women from around the globe - a powerful, illuminating, heart-rending picture of what the war was really like.In this masterful book, renowned historian Peter Englund describes this epoch-defining event by weaving together accounts of the average man or woman who experienced it. Drawing on the diaries, journals, and letters of 20 individuals from Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Venezuela, and the United States, Englunds collection of these varied perspectives describes not a course of events but "a world of feeling". Composed in short chapters that move between the home front and the front lines, The Beauty and Sorrow brings to life these 20 particular people and lets them speak for all who were shaped in some way by the war, but whose voices have remained unheard.
About the Author
Peter Englund (born April 4, 1957 in Boden) is a Swedish author and historian, and a member of the Swedish Academy since 2002. Englund was born into a military family in Boden and studied caretaking for two years and then humanistic subjects for another two years in secondary school. He was then conscripted and served 15 months in the Swedish Army at the Norrbotten Regiment located in Boden. He was politically active in his youth and supported the FNL. Englund studied archaeology, history, and theoretical philosophy at Uppsala University, completing a bachelor's degree in 1983, after which he began doctoral studies in History. He was awarded his Ph. D. in 1989 for his dissertation Det hotade huset (English title in the dissertation abstract: A House in Peril) (1989) , an investigation of the worldview of the 17th century Swedish nobility. During his period as a doctoral student, he had also worked for some time for the Swedish Military Intelligence and Security Service ("MUST") , and the year before receiving his doctorate he had published the bestselling Poltava, a detailed description of the Battle of Poltava, where the troops of Swedish king Charles XII were defeated by the Russian army of Tsar Peter I in 1709. Englund has received the August Prize (1993) and the Selma Lagerlof Prize for Literature (2002) . He was elected a member of the Swedish Academy in 2002. Englund writes non-fiction books and essays, mainly about history, and especially about the Rise of Sweden as a Great Power, but also about other historical events. He writes in a very accessible style, providing narrative details usually omitted in typical books about history. His books have gained popularity and are translated into several languages, such as German and Czech.
