Catherine the Great

This biography follows Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst from her arrival in Russia and marriage to the future Peter III through the 1762 coup that made her empress and the long reign that followed. Alexander treats court faction, the Pugachev revolt, the wars with the Ottoman Empire, the partitions of Poland, administrative reform, and Catherine's correspondence with Enlightenment writers. He also weighs the stories that grew around her private life against the record. An epilogue turns to the legend. The book is a political life of the reign, not a novel and not a general history of Russia.

Bound in red brocade with leather spine label. Pictorial slipcase.