World of Yesterday

Rating:
Summary: Remarkable autobiography.
Review: Zweig's aim was to compose an eyewitness report on the first part of the twentieth century in order to save the horrendous truth for the next generations.
It is a shocking report about what he calls the 'Apocalypse': terror, war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific plague of all: nationalism.
He gives us a compelling story of contrasts: the soldiers in the trenches and the arms merchants with their luxury life; English unemployed in five star hotels in Salzburg because they could afford a luxury life on the continent with their unemployment benefits; the brothels and the suicides because of syphilis (Eros Matutina); and the desertion of the Kaiser as a thief in the night at the end of the war, after driving millions of his compatriots into a certain death.
He also relates his encounters with fellow writers like Gide, Rolland, Rilke or Verhaeren.
A moving, outspoken, penetrating and emotional report.
A masterpiece.