This is an inspirational Book and could well be the best book I’ve ever read. I don’t read memoir normally, but then again this is not just a memoir it’s a journey through an amazing period of history, a memento of an age, and is like leafing through an album of historic moments.

As Zweig said of a conversation with Sigmund Freud, I found myself learning from him and admiring him at the same time. And then I wonder how it is I’d not heard of Zweig until recently? Zweig met and befriended many important people of his time ranging from James Joyce to HG Wells, Richard Strauss, Emile Verhaeren, and Rainer Maria Rilke.

Yet, Zweig never appears to brag about this, he mentions his successes which were considerable, but it’s never about him, it’s about other people, events, and the effect they have on the world. There’s an insider’s perspective on the rise of the Nazis and how this affected Austria.

The book starts with Zweig’s schooldays in Vienna and how he started to become a writer and chronicles his travels to neighbouring countries and the growing realisation that war was inevitable. Even after World War I, Zweig believed Europe could still have avoided WWII if only European and American leaders had followed Woodrow Wilson’s plan instead of hacking it about to suit their needs. The League of Nations was the right idea but never received the backing it deserved to police disputes.

The question remains: how could someone so talented and intelligent and clear-thinking have decided to end it all before WWII came to an end? Could he really see no hope at all?