Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Peter the Great: His Life and World
Book Review: I Couldn't Put It Down
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a fascinating account of Russia's social and cultural awakening. The chapters covering Peter's tour of Europe and the war against Sweden contain a tremendous amount of detail, but the writing is never tedious. Besides telling you just about everything you'd want to know about Peter the Great, Massie gives a very poignant account of Charles XII of Sweden. If you want to understand how Russia became Westernized, this is a great place to start.Book Review: IT DESERVED ITS PULITZER PRIZE
Summary: 5 Stars
Peter the Great is by far one of the most interesting figures of Russian history. To truly understand his life, one needs to understand the mentality, superstitions, and cultural norms of the Russian people during Peter's reign. Robert K. Massie accomplishes this task quite skillfully. Peter was a strong, determined, and decisive leader with a clear vision of where he wanted Russia to be. Nothing stopped him from his path, not even his own son whom suffered the severest punishment imaginable for betraying Peter and vision of the future. Robert K. Massie has done an excellent job of making the reader understand the difficulties Peter encountered, the issues he had to deal with, and the obstacles he had to overcome.
I recommend this book very highly to anyone interested in history or historical biographies. Massie trully deserved the Pulitzer prize he won for this work. The book is quite comprehensive, and highly considerate of the reader. This book is THE Peter The Great book to read. It is well researched and documented, and gives you a thorough picture of Peter the Great in 855 pages.
Book Review: Incredible Literature
Summary: 5 Stars
Peter the Great was a larger than life figure and Massie does a fabulous job describing him and his world in this book. Massie, who is one of the most readable historians I've ever come across, incorporates incredible research and a flair for storytelling to make this both academic and exciting. I began reading the book hoping to learn more about Russia and Peter the Great, but Massie is much more ambitious than that and describes the socio-political climate throughout Europe during Peter's era. It provides a wonderful history lesson and is certainly as thorough as most semester long European history classes. I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone interested in history or enjoys exciting stories about heroic emperors, wars, politics, and foreign cultures. Do not let the length scare you off, this will be one of the best historical books you ever read.Book Review: Incredible book! Highly recommended!
Summary: 5 Stars
Peter the Great... was just that, GREAT! To say that I enjoyed this book is a bit of an understatement. Robert K. Massie wrote a historical account of one of the most fascinating characters in the modern age and wrote it to read like a novel. When I first bought this book, I had just gotten back from a trip to St. Petersburg and was blown away by this incredible place and I was interested to `read-up' on the man behind the creation. I found that this book was all that and more. History, will always be subjective but Mr. Massie did `Peter the Great' justice by not only telling us of his positives characteristics (he tried and succeeded in bringing Russia to the modern age) but also allowing us to see his negative characteristics (volatile temper and estranged family connections). I recommend this book to anyone (in fact, I have given it as a gift on two occasions) and now I'm reading some of his other booksBook Review: Intersting book, arrived in good shape, thanks to Amazon!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is full of millions of details about the people places and events , it can be used as a reference book but it is also interesting for average reader like me. The language is like that of a novel, so it is far from being boring. It arrived in good shape though I had to ruin it by wiping it with liquid soap and alcohol followed by ironing from over a piece of fabric in fear of catching swine flu(The package has arrived from the US so I have a right to be obsessive-compulsive:)))