Sternstunden der Menschheit. Zwölf historische Miniaturen

by Stefan Zweig

Paper Book, 1992

Status

Available

Genres

Publication

Frankfurt am Main Fischer 1992

Description

Did you know that scientists are able to build with atoms, the smallest building blocks of the universe? Advanced devices, materials, and computers are three areas in which nanotechnology is changing our future a few molecules at a time. Learn more about how scientists work with the tiniest objects imaginable.

User reviews

LibraryThing member MSarki
Wonderful writing. Great stories. I learned a lot. I did not already know the details surrounding these events. Glad i read this book.
LibraryThing member thorold
Sternstunden der Menschheit is probably Zwieg's best-known work among German readers - it's a collection of anything from five to fourteen (depending on which edition you read) short sketches of "critical moments" in human history. The subjects are quite freely chosen: political/military moments
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(Lenin's sealed train, Waterloo, the fall of Constantinople), moments of discovery (Scott in the Antarctic, Nuñez de Balboa in Darien, Suter in California), moments of artistic creation (Goethe coming home from Marienbad, Handel writing Messiah, Rouget de Lisle writing the song that would become the Marseillaise), personal moments (Dostoievsky's reprieve from execution, Tolstoy's escape from his wife).

The collection seems to be mostly about the sheer pleasure of story-telling: there is no obvious didactic or political purpose. Zweig obviously doesn't have a lot of sympathy with Men of Destiny, but does have a soft spot for heroic failures like Rouget de Lisle, Suter and Capt. Scott. I found his free-verse account of Dostoievsky in front of the firing squad a bit cold and generic, but his sympathy and engagement with the misbehaving elderly geniuses Goethe and Tolstoy is completely convincing. Goethe was already in the 1927 edition, whilst Tolstoy was added in 1940, so this clearly isn't entirely an autobiographical sympathy.

Enjoyable, but a bit fluffy.
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Language

Original publication date

1927

Physical description

18 cm

ISBN

3596205956 / 9783596205950
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