In Russia's struggle with Napoleon, Tolstoy saw a tragedy that involved all of humanity. More than a historical chronicle, War and Peace is an affirmation of life itself, `` a complete picture, '' as one contemporary critic put it, `` of everything in which people find their happiness and greatness, their pain and humiliation. '' Tolstoy gave his personal approval to this translation, published here in a new single-volume edition, which includes an introduction by Henry Gifford, and Tolstoy's important essay 'A Few Words on War and Peace'.