Catherine the Great

Book Description

Critics

• 'Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman' Is a Magical Journey About an Amazing Woman

  The last lines of Robert K. Massie’s book Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman refer to the life of Catherine the Great, but these lines could just as easily apply to the biography itself. Massie ends the approximately 570 page story by stating: ... (read full critics)

  popmatters published on Fri, 13 Jan 2012

• Robert K. Massie Paints 'Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman'

  Biographies are not just big books — they're big business. With a plethora of television channels dedicated to the form and an ever-growing slab of shelf space, finding the good biographies can be as difficult as finding the good books. And to a degr ... (read full critics)

  bookotron published on Tue, 20 Dec 2011

1 Review

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  Catherine the Great Portrait of a Woman

  After a long absence and a detour into writing about early 20th century naval history, Robert Massie has returned to biography with a compelling portrait of an often-maligned woman. The subtitle carries much weight here, since the author shows that feminine gender did nothing to keep Catherine from ... (continue)

  After a long absence and a detour into writing about early 20th century naval history, Robert Massie has returned to biography with a compelling portrait of an often-maligned woman. The subtitle carries much weight here, since the author shows that feminine gender did nothing to keep Catherine from prevailing over adversity and establishing herself and her nation as major forces in the world. As a woman, Catherine had the same emotional needs as any other human, and her search for fulfillment with a series of lovers led to her subsequent Messalina-like reputation. One flaw keeps this book from rating as superlative, and that is a long digression about the background of the French Revolution, along with a needless treatise about the efficacy of the guillotine. These belong in a book about a Russian Empress why? Where was the editor?
  Even with this problem, the book compares favorably with others on Catherine by Vincent Cronin and Virginia Rounding. Read and rejoice that Robert Massie is writing biographies again.

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Book Details

• Rating:
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• English Books
• Others 656 Pages
• ISBN-10: 158836044X
• ISBN-13: 9781588360441
• Publisher: Random House
• Pub date: Nov 08, 2011

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