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Dec 05, 2011

Sandybanks rated it:

FROM THE MEMOIRS OF CATHERINE THE GREAT

First things first: that wasn’t my real name. The Empress Elizabeth, who was Peter the Great’s daughter (now, that is a man who truly deserves “the Great” after his name!), changed my name to Ekaterina when she converted me into the Russian Orthodox religion. As for that superfluous title that follows my new name, it was prematurely bestowed on me by the Legislative Commission that I convened to give Russia a more enlightened legal code (m More...

23 comments like (31 people liked it)

Nov 29, 2011

Chrissie rated it:

I am impressed. Catherine the Great lived from 1729-1796. She was 14 when she first came to Russia, This book covers this entire time period meticulously. I understand how her childhood experiences came to shape her as an adult. I understand her need for love and why she came to have twelve lovers. At the same time she was motivated to seek power. She played a huge role in European history. All of this history is detailed in the book. You meet her as a person and as a leader. Everything one coul More...

19 comments like (14 people liked it)

Nov 08, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

This one was clearly a win for me as a biography of Catherine the Great. Massie's writing is clear, brisk and kept the story moving throughout. What I really enjoyed was how he took the time and trouble to show how Catherine carried forward the reforms begun by Peter the Great, and was a monarch who overcame a great deal of adversity to overcome the obstacles of not being Russian, being a woman, and a usurper to boot -- most biographies focus on her time before becoming empress and/or her lovers More...

9 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 03, 2011

Cheryl rated it:

The Romanov dynasty of Russia spanned three hundred years ending with the abdication and murder of Tsar Nicholas, his wife Alexandra and their five children in 1918. This dramatic turning point in governing was chronicled by Robert K. Massie to critic's applause in "Nicholas and Alexandra". The Pulitzer Prize was awarded the octogenarian author for his narrative biography of Peter the Great.

Continuing his half century Russian history focus, Massie offers the extraordinary More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2012

Sara rated it:

ARC received through the First Reads program.

Like many people, the most I knew about Catherine the Great was that she was a Russian queen with some persistent saucy rumors attached to her. This narrative history sheds a lot of light on the life of the German princess who became Empress of Russia in her own right. For example, the Russian royals didn't necessarily come to the throne by right of primogeniture, which is how Catherine was able to become Empress.

Catherine's ma More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2011

Laura rated it:

Massie's research into the life of Catherine II is extensive (for example, he used three different translations of her Memoirs) and wide-ranging and the writing style is engaging enough to almost make one forget this is a nearly 600 page book (it's the weight that gives it away).

While I knew something about her life, there was much I hadn't and was fascinated to learn. I knew she was a German princess, but not that it was of some small, unimportant state. I knew she and her mother More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2011

Allizabeth rated it:

Description:[return][return] Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie is the biography of Sophia Augusta, later known as Russian Empress Catherine the Great. It details Sophia's childhood, marriage, children, affairs, rise to power, famed coup, and eventual death. It is based on recorded historical documents and on Catherine's memoirs.[return][return]Review:[return][return] I have never read any other books by Robert K. Massie, but now I'm hooked. Catherine the Great More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Jan 08, 2012

Renae rated it:

What I Liked: I have not read many biographies, so I don’t know if this is the norm or not, but I was very impressed with the way Massie goes beyond just chronicling Catherine’s actions. Yes, he reports her decisions and movements, but he provides insight into the why. Based on thorough and credible research, Massie offers his readers a reason for what this great woman did, gives a glimpse into her state of mind. It was an effective tactic that really solidified the credibility of this book and More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 09, 2011

Tatiana rated it:

Like probably every woman of note in history, open about and unashamed of her sexuality, Catherine the Great is primarily remembered as a power- and man-hungry, salacious, perverted woman. Try googling her name and see how high on the list of the results is the ever-pressing question - Did she really sleep with a horse? Does anyone care about her accomplishments in politics, art and science? Not really. But her sexual exploits? Oh, YES!

That's why I appreciate Robert K. Massie's Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman More...

10 comments like (35 people liked it)

Oct 20, 2011

Donna rated it:

Massie's much anticipated biography of the only female Russian ruler accorded the title "the Great" is as compelling as his previous biographies.

This biography of Sophia Augusta, later known as Catherine, is a deeply researched and masterfully told story.

The book begins with an explaination of Sophia's early childhood. She was not a much loved child, being born a female and not the son her mother wanted. "Johanna could not find or express any maternal feeli More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2011

Mamatha rated it:

4 1/2 stars. Biographies. They sometimes fill me with a sense of dread. How much teduious and pendantic writing will I have to suffer through? In this case, none!!! Not only was it a fascinating portrait of a woman who excercised power few women ever have and her extraordinary rise to the throne but also of the Russia and the Europe of her time. And although she believed that absolute monarchy was the best form of government she also was engaged with the Enlightenment and I was surprised by More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 25, 2011

Catherine rated it:

Ok, I admit that I know essentially nothing about Russian history, and less about the czars and how they came to power. What I knew about the empress Catherine was even more suspect, and fell into the category of titillating rather than historical--multiple lovers, died having sex with a horse.
Well, if Robert Massey is to be believed, this is not the case. She did have a series of lovers throughout her adult life, but fewer than most college students rack up these days, and she appears t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 14, 2012

Kathleen rated it:

I knew almost nothing about Catherine the Great and the history of Russia at this time. Learned quite a bit. Typical of the 18th century and royalty - marriage, children, alliances (and in Russia's case - religion - Orthodox Christianity) were extremely important. Fascinating how she became the Empress (she really was married to an idiot of a husband). The book was probably too detailed for me - lots of details about her "favorites" - the men in her life. She was a thinker and cor More...

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Feb 13, 2012

Alan rated it:

This is a must read for anyone interested in Russian history. Massie writes extremely readable books about the czars, including Peter the Great and Nicholas and Alexandra. Catherine's life is fascinating, she was a a member of the minor aristocracy in Germany. She was picked out by Elizabeth (czar prior to Catherine) and married to Elizabeth's nephew, Peter(son of Elizabeth's sister Anne and a grandson of Peter the Great). Catherine and Peter had a very troubled marriage, and when Elizabeth die More...

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Feb 12, 2012

Richard rated it:

Massie is the author of the seminal biography Peter The Great. First, the volume itself is beautiful and sumptuously designed and constructed hardcover with well reproduced illustrations. Each section is set off by a nicely designed page.

This is one of the first of the new hardcovers that are strategically designed and constructed to induce people who love the tactile sensation of holding a physical book to buy. In the end, I believe, the hardcover will survive to satisfy the More...

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Feb 07, 2012

Jenny rated it:

The Scarlet Empress, The Iron Lady, and My Cab Driver

Since the phenomenon of women in power is still rather rare, inevitably we develop a fetishistic relationship to those exceptional women who do somehow manage to rise to the very top of the political ladder. We regard these women as at once bewitching and bewitched, and they arouse in us the tantalizing dread of being eaten alive. One of my favorite renditions of our convoluted eroticization of female power is Joseph von Sternberg' More...

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Feb 06, 2012

Margaret rated it:

I was first introduced to Robert K. Massie with Nicholas and Alexandra at 14, the same age that Sophia embarked on her journey toward claiming the Russian throne. Though the book was an assignment for my history class, it absorbed me in the fascinating, tragic story of the end of the Russian Tsar. Not only did I both continue to remember the book fondly into adulthood, but the lessons about how interrelated the European royalty was and the impact of Queen Victoria’s latent hemophilia stayed as w More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 28, 2012

Jane rated it:

Where I got the book: ARC from LibraryThing Early Reviewer Program

A good biography needs to be chunky, informative and as exciting as a novel. Massie does well on all three counts. Catherine The Great is a lively account of both Catherine's life and the slice of European and Russian history into which she was born, and I greatly enjoyed it.

Catherine, I learned, began life as a princess in an obscure German minor royal household. By the time she died, she had achieved grea More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2012

Jennifer rated it:

I'm giving this four stars, but more for Catherine the Great than for the book itself. Catherine is fascinating. Like most 18th-century royalty, she was birthed and raised to be a princess or better and as a result is married off by an ambitious parent into an unhappy marriage. But, it's Russia, so kind of more OK with certain things than other royal houses. For example: when Catherine's husband Peter the III refuses to sleep with her to produce an heir, Catherine is presented with a choice of l More...

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Jan 11, 2012

Toni rated it:

This was fabulous. Granted, Robert Massie had pretty great material to work with, but his prose is clear, engaging, eminently readable. And what a lady! I knew nothing about her going in, beyond the old coupling-with-horses story (along with the Potemkin villages, totally apocryphal, I am sorry to report). But her real story is even better -- It turns out she was born a German princess, was brought to Russia to marry the heir to the throne, who, in turn (1) spent all of his adulthood basically p More...

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Jan 07, 2012

Abby Lyn rated it:

There are some books on my nightstand that are more aspirational than realistic future reads for me. I thought Massie's massive (nearly 600 page) biography of Catherine the Great was one of them, but I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly I read this book. I probably shouldn't have been, having so thoroughly enjoyed his previous work, Nicholas and Alexandra, which like this biography was as engrossing and entertaining as a novel. And I knew I would find his subject interesting, having proba More...

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Dec 24, 2011

Sue rated it:

Very thorough history of the life of Catherine, an interesting person to say the least. It was also an interesting history of the times and the culture of not only Russia but their contemporaries in Western Europe and Turkey.

The history is told from a personal-story point of view of Catherine and all the people, places, and cultures in her world as opposed to a point of view of the times themselves, with Catherine only one of the many players in that period of history. As Massie des More...

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Dec 22, 2011

Karen rated it:

Having read all the other books about Russia by Massie, I couldn't wait to dive into the life of Catherine the Great. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I found this book a completely unsatisfying read. Poorly organized with huge swaths of text out of chronological sequence, much of the book was tell not show. Occasionally one got a glimpse of the life of the woman, the description of her place in the world and the complex web of others who were both supportive and destructive. Way t More...

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Dec 03, 2011

Jeri rated it:

Everything you ever wanted to know about Catherine the Great...and more! Fascinating story about this absolutely amazing empress. She and Elizabeth I stand alone as female monarchs who achieved more than most of their male counterparts (whoops, probably need to add Cleo to that as well). But Catherine was intriguing - coming to Russia as a 14 year old girl to marry the future tsar, how did she achieve what she did? And what about all of those "favorites" that came into her life -- More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 01, 2011

Alecia rated it:

I read Nicholas and Alexandra many years ago,and loved it, and a few years ago read Peter the Great(Massie won the Pulitzer for that wonderful biography). I read Peter the Great right before I went to St. Petersburg, and it helped make all of the monuments and places I saw come alive. I also saw many places attributed to Catherine the Great. This new biography of her now makes me remember what I saw yet again. Robert K. Massie has the ability to turn eight years of research into an information-f More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 04, 2011

Holly rated it:

Pulitzer Prize winner, Robert K. Massie, adds Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman to his other biographies of Russian rulers (Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and the Romanovs). This biography of German born Sophia Augusta, who later became ruler of Russia, creatively reveals how she became the only Russian female to be accorded the title of “The Great.”

Mr. Massie’s research is thorough and lends an authenticity to the biography through the inclusion of excerpts from Cathe More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 06, 2011

Gaby rated it:

Pulitzer Prize winning Robert Massie adds Catherine the Great to his earlier biographies of Russian leaders (Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and the Romanovs). This meticulously researched narrative biography is tells us the story of Sophia Augusta Federicka, daughter of minor German nobility, her fortuitous marriage to the grandson of Peter the Great, and her climb to become Catherine II, Queen of the Russias.

Sophia's mother, Johanna, was from one of the great Ducal families More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 03, 2011

Jaylia3 rated it:

This gripping, well written book about Russian Empress Catherine the Great introduced me to a non-England and France centered European history that I knew almost nothing about, and to the very human but inspiring Catherine II. Catherine was born to a German family of minor nobility, and being a girl she was a disappointment to her poor but socially ambitious mother. The lack of affection she experienced during her childhood prepared her well for the marriage her mother managed to arrange to th More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2011

Eva rated it:

I have read all biographies of Catherine The Great I could find and they all have something in them that is unique. Robert K. Massey's Catherine includes extensive excerpts from her memoirs, letters, and other primary sources--adding authentic voices to the narrative. Massey calls his biography "a portrait of a woman" and he is consistent in showing Catherine's feminine side.
I found his discussion of historical background very illuminating--he cleared a few mysteries for me--howev More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 02, 2012

Joseph rated it:

Few studies offer its disciples more opportunity for misguided assumptions than history. Existing records are only as accurate at the writer (and are often as biased). And more often then not, the fragile word and questionable word simply does not exist. The realm of biography heightens these perils as researches move from listing mere action (complex enough) to answering the immortal question: what was that person thinking?

As a biographer, Robert K. Massie writes with a command of 18t More...

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