"I read War and Peace from cover to cover last summer, and what I found remarkable was how Tolstoy was able to bring his own philosophy of life into the story without distracting you from it. His big theme was that history was not the sum of actions of 'great men.' It was the sum of actions by lots of individuals. It is true that your actions get hemmed in by contingency but there is no great 'master plan' up there. There is no inevitability. You choose. The moment comes. You choose."