Catherine the Great: Summary and book reviews of Catherine the Great by Robert Massie, plus links to an excerpt from Catherine the Great and a biography of Robert Massie.
Catherine the Great Portrait of a Woman
by Robert K. Massie
Hardcover: Nov 2011,
656 pages.
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 by 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 throne fired by Enlightenment philosophy and determined to become the embodiment of the "benevolent despot" idealized by Montesquieu, she found herself always contending with the deeply ingrained realities of Russian life, including serfdom. She persevered, and for thirty-four years the government, foreign policy, cultural development, and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, foreign wars, and the tidal wave of political change and violence churned up by the French Revolution that swept across Europe. Her reputation depended entirely on the perspective of the speaker. She was praised by Voltaire as the equal of the greatest of classical philosophers; she was condemned by her enemies, mostly foreign, as "the Messalina of the north."
Catherine's family, friends, ministers, generals, lovers, and enemies - all are here, vividly described. These included her ambitious, perpetually scheming mother; her weak, bullying husband, Peter (who left her lying untouched beside him for nine years after their marriage); her unhappy son and heir, Paul; her beloved grandchildren; and her "favorites" - the parade of young men from whom she sought companionship and the recapture of youth as well as sex. Here, too, is the giant figure of Gregory Potemkin, her most significant lover and possible husband, with whom she shared a passionate correspondence of love and separation, followed by seventeen years of unparalleled mutual achievement.
The story is superbly told. All the special qualities that Robert K. Massie brought to Nicholas and Alexandra and Peter the Great are present here: historical accuracy, depth of understanding, felicity of style, mastery of detail, ability to shatter myth, and a rare genius for finding and expressing the human drama in extraordinary lives.
History offers few stories richer in drama than that of Catherine the Great. In this book, this eternally fascinating woman is returned to life.
[Massie] carefully explains and analyzes memoirs, letters, and political essays from both Catherine and her contemporaries and demonstrates a literary critic's knack for extracting meaning from single phrases or words. In doing so, he creates a dramatic tension that is as good as any novel. (Reviewed by Elizabeth Whitmore Funk).
Kirkus Reviews
Massie delivers a fascinating account of dog-eat-dog politics in 18th-century Europe and the larger-than-life Russian empress who gave as good as she got.
Library Journal
No one does Russian history like Massie... He's absorbing and accessible yet well grounded; his new work should fascinate.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Effectively utilizing Catherine's own memoirs, Massie once again delivers a masterful, intimate, and tantalizing portrait of a majestic monarch.
bn.com
In Massie, [Catherine the Great's] tumultuous story finds an ideal teller. Peter the Great, his last large-scale life, won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by John T. Alexander Massie's flawed book Massie's book is grossly overrated, miserably researched and ineptly written by an author who knows no Russian and darn little history. It is choc full of errors in the chronology, names and terms, you name it. He has lost it at age 82, if he ever... Read More
Robert K. Massie constructed his biography of Catherine the Great relying heavily on material from her memoirs (now published by Random House under the title The Memoirs of Catherine the Great), which provided him with rare, honest views of an eighteenth century royal's life.
These memoirs make for rewarding reading in their own right and are vastly supplemented by the dramas, letters, journalism, and political theory that she published in her lifetime. Though they were originally written in French, her preferred language, they have since been translated into numerous languages and published throughout the world.
Catherine began writing her memoirs in her early teens and revised her work throughout her life, continually polishing the written accounts of her days - from her youth in Prussia, to the assassination of her husband...
Winner of BookBrowse's 2009 Nonfiction Book Award.
In this vivid new biography of Abigail Adams, the most illustrious woman of America's founding era, prize-winning historian Woody Holton offers a sweeping reinterpretation of Adams's life story and of women's roles in the creation of the republic.
The winner of Britain's prestigious Whitbread Prize and a bestseller there for months, this wonderfully readable biography offers a rich, rollicking picture of late-eighteenth-century British aristocracy and the intimate story of a woman who for a time was its undisputed leader.
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Kirkus Reviews
of 5
by John T. Alexander
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These memoirs make for rewarding reading in their own right and are vastly supplemented by the dramas, letters, journalism, and political theory that she published in her lifetime. Though they were originally written in French, her preferred language, they have since been translated into numerous languages and published throughout the world.
