Yes, it is adapted from the book. Now let’s get on to more critical information I can give you as someone who has already watched it: clear up the next 7 hours. I started it at midnight, finished it at 7am. This binge-worthy historical drama tells the story of how the illegitimate son of the richest man in Russia (played by Paul Dano) finds himself in the center of his country’s downfall as it faces another Napoleon invasion. Romance intertwines with war, tragedy and greed. Tolstoy himself (author of the book this series is based on) recognized that the tangled story is not novel-like, “even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle". Directed by Tom Harper (Peaky Blinders), it has an almost obsessive attention to detail that captures the glamor, deceit, and insanity of its time. More importantly, it stays true to the philosophical nature of the written material, and by extension becomes an illustrative work on the human condition in general.