Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

ISBN 10 : 0606268367 ISBN 13 : 9780606268363

A propos du livre

Quatrième de couverture :

'The most accessible and enjoyable portrait yet' Daily Mail
'Catherine the Great had no claim to the Russian throne whatsoever; she was not even Russian. To seize the imperial crown, she overthrew her own husband, the Emperor Peter III, and was responsible, to greater and lesser degrees, for his murder ... Catherine may have been vain, ruthless, ambitious and duplicitous but she was also tolerant, generous, well-intentioned, cultured, superbly intelligent - and a political genius. Russia had not enjoyed such a great, humanitarian leader before or since ...

Rounding has read widely, and writes punctilious, professional history with a no-nonsense style and a respectful relish for the details that make the past come alive.' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Sunday Telegraph
' ... For a sense of Catherine's intimate life, sexual appetites, preoccupations, ruthlessness, intellectual scope, sentimentality and dedication, this is a great piece of work.' FT Magazine

'Rounding's respectful take is highly appropriate ... Through her eyes, we see a woman committed to Enlightenment values ... Catherine was both a highly sexual woman and an intellectual; there is nothing anyone need add to her story. It is all there.' Scotsman

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Many legends have grown up about the sexual rapacity of Catherine the Great. While it is true that she shocked the Russian court with the number and age of her lovers, there is no truth in the rumour of her death by stallion. Unhappily married to the Grand Duke Peter, a man who preferred to play with his toy soldiers in the bedroom, they failed to produce an heir, and Catherine turned her attentions to a certain Sergey Saltykov who fathered the future Tsar Paul I. Six months into the reign of Peter III, Catherine, supported by the Imperial Guard, staged a successful coup against her husband and became Empress. It was her ambition to transform a vast but semi-barbaric country with the cultural and political reforms of Enlightenment Europe. In this timely and fascinating biography, Virginia Rounding reveals an extraordinary woman in all her complexity.

À propos de cette édition

• ISBN 10: 0606268367
• ISBN 13: 9780606268363
• Reliure: Belle reliure