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A Family at War
Alexander Waugh
ISBN: 9780747591856
Format: Hardback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
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"A beautifully lyrical and ultimately tragic account of an extraordinary family. Waugh captures the paradoxical brilliance and emotional flaws of the Wittgenstein's standing in the centre of perhaps the most turbulent cultural climate of the 20th century." Tom, Blackwell's Oxford
Traces the triumphs and vicissitudes of a family held together by a love of music yet torn apart by money, madness, conflicts of loyalty and the cataclysmic upheaval of two world wars.
The Wittgenstein family was one of the richest, most talented and most eccentric in European history. Karl Wittgenstein, who ran away from home as a wayward and rebellious youth, returned to his native Vienna to make a fortune in the iron and steel industries. He bought factories and paintings and palaces, but the domineering and overbearing influence he exerted over his eight children resulted in a generation of siblings fraught by inner antagonisms and nervous tension. Three of his sons committed suicide; Paul, the fourth, became a world-famous concert pianist (using only his left hand), while Ludwig, the youngest, is now regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century.In this dramatic historical and psychological epic, Alexander Waugh traces the triumphs and vicissitudes of a family held together by a fanatical love of music yet torn apart by money, madness, conflicts of loyalty and the cataclysmic upheaval of two world wars. Through the bleak despair of a Siberian prison camp to the terror of a Gestapo interrogation room, one courageous and unlikely hero emerges from the rubble of the house of Wittgenstein in the figure of Paul, an extraordinary testament to the indomitable spirit of human survival.
| ISBN | 0747591857 | | DEWEY edition | DC22 | | ISBN13 | 9780747591856 (What's this?) | | Pages | 384 | | Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | | Published in | London | | Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | | Height (mm) | 234 | | Format | Hardback | | Width (mm) | 153 | | Publication date | 15 Sep 2008 | | Academic level | General | | DEWEY | 943.61304410922 | |
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PRAISE FOR FATHERS AND SONS: 'Written with wit, great shrewdness and without a trace of sentimentality.' William Boyd, GUARDIAN 'Beautiful, funny, touching and riveting. It is nothing less than a classic of its kind' A.C. Grayling PRIASE FOR TIME: 'Very special Outstandingly successful This is a remarkable book' Patrick Moore  Be the first to write a customer review
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