I’ve been meaning to read this book for years and have finally gotten around to it. About 65% of the way into the book, as a preamble to describing Napoleon’s capture of Moscow and subsequent retreat I ran into an amazing short chapter (Book Eleven: 1812 Chapter I, to be found online at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2600/2600-h/2600-h.htm#link2H_4_0240). In this chapter Tolstoy starts by describing paradoxes in classical physics and their mathematical models (Zeno’s paradox) and how they are essentially resolved using calculus. He then goes on to apply this by analogy to the “movement” of nations in history in a way that foreshadow modern research in computational social science. (See for example, Ian Lustick’s work on agent-based models for populations, e.g. http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/3/1/1.html). Pretty remarkable for a book written in 1867!