A particular peeve: at the price of $29.99 the publisher wants us to forget that the book's price is $30. The book is physically uninviting, with small type, in dense and long paragraphs, and no illustrations. A superb biography.Scholarly, refreshing, commonsensical, and compelling, vividly portraying the charismatic Empress and her times. The trivial predominates, with detailed accounts of who wore what at her numerous balls and dinners. The book consists of a chronological sequence of events, mixing indiscriminately the trivial with the important, the latter often mentioned in passing. It doesn't explain the causes and effects of her wars, nor those of her diplomacy, nor does it explain the lasting effects of her policies on serfdom, towards the nobility, or the church, or the impact of the Pugachev rebellion. It contains no information that is not available in a good secondary school text and it provides no analysis about Catherine's reign and of its consequences. Its purpose is to see how Catherine II of Russia conceived of her power and how it was represented to her subjects. It is unclear, however, what justifies the publication of the present one. In an appendix, the author lists numerous works about Catherine the Great and it is evident that he has read many books about her.
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