As always a book by this author is worth the time spend with it.
He shares a very interesting view point of and on any topic he chooses to discuss in his eassys and has very good points. Of cours ein some aspects he is a bit too over ethusiastic but it's interesting to read and think about it all.

I would highly recommend this book!

Stefan Zweig has gained in popularity in the last few years due to the Twee movement and Wes Anderson movies. Zweig's literature has resurfaced in popularity. The idea of looming war, displacement, and both the silliness of fights and the crushing dictatorships drive his literature. We see more insights here into his essays at the time leading up to World War II. It is interesting to read now that we know what happened with the war. There is a certain naivete with the Nazis growing in power. This one Europe concept thought to give peace and prosperity was only the ruse of a dictator. Some very beautiful sentiments about cooperation and who we are as human beings only to see that dashed.

<p>Once upon a time, <a href="http://www.netgalley.com">Netgalley</a> gave me <A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/16505175/book/127287963">The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig</a>, which I read, deemed acceptable, and then, somehow, decided I liked a lot more than it turns out I did, based on my <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/16505175/reviews/127287963">review</a> at the time. Basically, my entire interest in Zweig is rooted in the fact that he killed himself in Brazil, in part as a reaction to the Second World War. It just seems simultaneously so ballsy and yet so futile and stupid an action (it's hardly like Zweig killing himself in 1942 would have been as war-disrupting as Hitler or Goebbels or Hirohito doing the same). Still, my mind has <a href="http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Facehugger">Alien-facehuggered</a> onto this sole fact, i.e. <i>Stefan Zweig killed himself in Brazil!!!!!! ..... (also he wrote some things, I guess, maybe, whatever).</i> But obviously, before he killed himself in Brazil, he wrote, amongst other things, the essays contained in <A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/16917734/book/143315255">Messages from a Lost World</a>, which I read, while thinking of Austrian authors who killed themselves in Brazil. Did you know that Stefan Zweig was an Austrian author who killed himself in Brazil in 1942? You didn't? Well, let me tell you about Stefan Zweig who killed himself in Brazil in 1942...</p>

<p><A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/16917734/book/143315255">Messages from a Lost World</a>'s essays (all of which were written prior to Zweig killing himself in Brazil in 1942) manage to be both dated and relevant at the same time. There's a lot of talk of <i>men</i> only, side-by-side with worries about ultra-nationalism and exceptionalism that seem written in reaction to Brexit and Trump. But then what? The struggle to override nationalism is continual, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do with the fact that Zweig was warning about this during fascism's thrall. I can't imagine Steve Bannon and Nigel Farange being like <i>Hey, I should totally read these essays from 1920s to the 1940s by a dead Jewish Austrian man</i> and then <i>Oh my goodness, I now see the error of my ways regarding the dangers of nationalism</i>, unless they too are somewhat obsessed with the fact that Zweig killed himself in Brazil in 1942 as a reaction to the Second World War. Do you think they are? Because I could tell you some things about an Austrian writer who killed himself in Brazil in 1942.</p>

<p><A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/16917734/book/143315255">Messages from a Lost World</a> by Stefan Zweig went on sale March 28, 2017.</p>

<p><small>I received a copy free from <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> in exchange for an honest review.</small></p>

<p>(Again, I checked the <i>Are you interested in connecting with this author</i> checkbox on <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a>, but Stefan Zweig's ghost has yet to appear to me.
Boo.)</p>

Thank you Net galley. A very interesting read from a writer whose life was marred by personal despair. The essays describing the Europe of WWI to WWII are well written and strike a chord with the problems besetting contemporary Europe and the world beyond it. Highly recommended.