War looms in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, and when Napoleon invades Russia in 1812 it forever changes those whose lives it engulfs. Although told on a panoramic scale Tolstoy's epic novel focuses the chaos of battle, the horror of death and bloodshed, and the expression of the noble virtues of love and valor through their impact on the lives of three principal characters: the courageous Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, the idealistic Pierre Bezukhov, and the nobly born beauty Natasha Rostov.

Tolstoy's 1893 book, subtitled "Christianity Not as a Mystical Teaching but as a New Concept of Life," introduced such vital concepts as non-violent resistance to 20th Century figures as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Although Tolstoy is best known as one of the great Russian novelists, his place as a social reformer and peace advocate cannot be underestimated.