A brilliant book viewed as a mirror reflection of the Golden Age of modern European intellectual life. The Zweig name will extend the market, but it is not a popular autobiography. He wrote as a world citizen -- there is nothing of intimate self portrait. His youth is drawn in terms of the prosperous Vienna of his day; only through his friendships and contacts with fellow writers, artists and men of affairs (Verhaeren, ike, Rodin, Gorhy, Rolland, Rathenau, etc.) does one sense an emotional quality in the man himself, with the first world war, one finds him attempting the goal of intellectual brotherhood. The years between were happy ones -- until the shadow of the swastika crept nearer. Finally, seeking freedom for intellectual life, he moved to England, only at the close to face the prospect again.