War and Peace in education
After a long flight, I've finally finished rereading War and Peace and, if you were in any doubt, it is a masterpiece. I found so much I'd either entirely forgotten or hadn't understood from my first reading over 20 years ago. What particularly struck me was the final chapter from the Second Epilogue. Throughout the book, Tolstoy has been advancing his theory of history as being far more than the will and actions of 'great men'. We are, he rather thinks, all slaves to circumstance and our attempts at writing history are mere post hoc rationalisations of what happened. In this final [...]