THE TIDE OF FORTUNE

The title sets the motif but does not limit it. In brief --and brilliant-biographical episodes, Zweig takes names great and small, in history and the arts and writes of one vital moment, in their life patterns, moments when history was made for the world -- or when a man's future was decided. Twelve brief dramas -- from almost as many centuries, and countries:- Cicero sacrificed to the fear of the triumvirate; Rouget writing the Marseillaise -- and dying obscure; Handel reborn in the inspiration of Messiah; Lenin, obscure in Switzerland, crossing Germany in sealed car; Balboa, viewing alone, two great oceans -- successful, too late; Scott, missing fame by less than a fortnight; Napoleon lost because one man followed orders, implicitly, etc. An ingenious tour de force.