The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide
()
About this ebook
This engaging summary presents an analysis of The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig, the author’s autobiography and a masterful depiction of the changes wrought by the two world wars in Europe. Zweig grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Vienna at a time when the city was at the heart of a vast centuries-old empire and the cultural and artistic capital of the continent. However, he watched in horror as simmering tensions and growing nationalist fervour culminated in two bloody wars, resulting in countless deaths and destroying the Europe of his youth. Mounting anti-Semitism in Europe and the worsening of the Second World War led him to flee to Brazil with his wife, where they both committed suicide in 1942. He left behind a vast and influential body of work, comprising novels, novellas, essays, plays, biographies and poetry.
Find out everything you need to know about The World of Yesterday in a fraction of the time!
This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you:
• A complete plot summary
• Character studies
• Key themes and symbols
• Questions for further reflection
Why choose BrightSummaries.com?
Available in print and digital format, our publications are designed to accompany you on your reading journey. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time.
See the very best of literature in a whole new light with BrightSummaries.com!
Read more from Bright Summaries
The Crucible by Arthur Miller (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFifty Shades Trilogy by E.L. James (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beloved by Toni Morrison (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGiovanni's Room by James Baldwin (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Lord of the Flies by William Golding (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOf Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Marquez (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTo Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLolita by Vladimir Nabokov (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNaked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig (Book Analysis)
Related ebooks
7 best short stories - Germany Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOf All That Ends Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Studies In Classic American Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Collected Essays of Virginia Woolf Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRomain Rolland Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Proust Among the Stars: How To Read Him; Why Read Him? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stegner: Conversations On History And Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Magic Mountain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Summing Up Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilla Cather My Antonia: Unabridged Text with Introduction, Biography and Analysis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Controversialist: Arguments with Everyone, Left Right and Center Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent: Selected Essays of Lionel Trilling Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEssays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOut of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D. H. Lawrence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Collected Essays Volume Two: Mary McCarthy's Theatre Chronicles, 1937–1962 and On the Contrary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWar and Peace Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of Harald Jähner's Aftermath Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History - Second Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Piece of My Mind: Reflections at Sixty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of the Month: Sixty Years of Books in American Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEssays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKim Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chekhov Becomes Chekhov: The Emergence of a Literary Genius Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe burning secret Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Early Greek Philosophy & Other Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCzeslaw Milosz: A California Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
General Fiction For You
Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Black Girl: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Outsider: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Candy House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King James Version of the Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Sister's Keeper: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig (Book Analysis)
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig (Book Analysis) - Bright Summaries
Austrian writer
Born in Vienna (Austro-Hungarian Empire, present-day Austria) in 1881.
Died in Petrópolis (near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) in 1942.
Notable works:
Jeremiah (1917), play
Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman (1932), biography
The Royal Game (1941), novella
Stefan Zweig was an essayist, biographer, novelist, poet, translator, manuscript collector and, above all, a firm believer in European unity. He was born to an aristocratic Jewish family in Vienna and grew up in a privileged environment, before earning a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna. From a young age, he took a keen interest in literature, especially poetry and theatre, and he garnered recognition in Vienna, a city renowned for its appreciation of the arts, for his first poetry collection, Silver Strings, which was published when he was just 19 years old.
Zweig grew up in comfortable circumstances, surrounded by friends and family who loved and admired him, but when he was at university, he decided that he wanted to leave this familiar environment behind and see the world. He spent time in Paris, where his social circle included many of the city’s bohemian writers, in Berlin, where he rubbed shoulders with people from every social class, and in New York, where he realised that America was on its way to becoming a world power. After travelling extensively across Europe, he became convinced of the need for a European identity that would transcend national borders.
He then returned to Vienna, but was soon forced to move again by the outbreak of the First World War (1914-1918) and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He decided to go to Zurich, as Switzerland was a neutral power, meaning that it was still