The Hedgehog and the Fox An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History

This essay on Tolstoy underlines a fundamental distinction between those people (foxes) who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things and those (hedgehogs) who relate everything to a central, all-embracing system. The author observes that while Tolstoy longed for a unitary vision, his perception of people, things, and the moments of history was so acute that he could not stop himself from writing as he saw, felt, and understood. He was by nature a fox who wanted to be a hedgehog.