Catherine the great biography 2012
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Catherine the Great: Life and Legend
There are also lots of paragraphs noting with precision the awards that Catherine awarded, typically to generals for having won some battle. Thus Ivan Kutosov (made up name) got a dagger with diamonds and rubies in the hilt, worth 20,000 roubles, together with a cash award of 100,000 roubles. How much was this in terms that a reader can understand, who is otherwise unfamiliar with the value of a rouble in the late 18th century. That's never made all that clear.
I also have a bit of a problem with the structure of this book. The middle section for example covers roughly Catherines middle age. Bu
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Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure young German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history.
Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into Empress of Russia bygd sheer determination. Possessing a brilliant mind and an insatiable curiosity as a young woman, she devoured the works of Enlightenment philosophers and, when she reached the throne, attempted to use their principles to guide her rule of the vast and backward Russian empire. She knew or corresponded with the preeminent historical figures of her time: Voltaire, Diderot, Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette, and, surprisingly, the American naval hero, John Paul Jones.
Reaching the
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After reading a good novel about Catherine the Great, I wanted to read a good biography to refresh my knowledge of her. Years ago I had a book called Elizabeth and Catherine by Robert Coughlan, a double biography both of Catherine and her predecessor Elizabeth. Judging by the look of the spine as I glance up at it on my shelf, it’s one I reread several times, which probably explains why when reading Massie’s recent biography of Catherine, the details of her life quickly began coming back to me. Catherine’s life is a great, epic story stretching across sixty-plus years, the vast Russian landscape, and a half-century of events in Europe including the Seven Years’ War and the French Revolution.
This biography is highly readable and engaging. It’s definitely written for the average, non-scholarly reader and there were times I wished Massie had dug a little deeper into his sources or given us more background. For example, Massie presents Cat