Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

A story based on true stories, Empress Catherine the Great of Russia was written by Robert K. Massie, compelling biography of justice in his new biography of historical slander, Catherine the Great
Equivalent to the rulers of other women: Queen Elizabeth I. As Stacy Schiff Cleopatra in her bio, Massie recounts the life of a famous woman without the bias of the last century. Told from the human side, a Catherine the Great was a sensual woman and a king who takes lovers who sometimes much younger that he appreciated the gifts and money, it does not make it a filthy despicable.
Without any smell politically correct gender studies in the tale better than any young adult novels German aristocrat who ultimately equivalent in the lead before Peter the Great of Russia. Born in 1729, At the age of 16, Catherine married as a young teenager heir to the throne of Russia. Like him, the Tsar Peter III born in Germany, but there the similarity ends.
Catherine is intelligent and charming girl learn about Russia, by embracing orthodox religious rituals, read voraciously and ready for the big responsibility of 20 million people.  
Peter alienated unsuspecting adult court with his contempt for all things Russian. Worse, he was cruel to animals, his servant, and most of all, the young bride. Worst of all, in the century when every ruler's Job One begetting heirs as much as possible, for nine years Catherine remained a virgin because her husband will not touch it.
Over the past 6 months in government disaster Peter, the nobles, and the church was already enough soldiers. They finally put Catherine on the throne at the age of 33 years stepped on, he developed samapai diamana pick her death in 1796. (It is not likely that Catherine planned or approved this action by his supporters)
 
Once in charge, Catherine became evident that reflects the ruler as a skilled workhorse collaborate between fascination with the Enlightenment - Voltaire he was dealing with - and the harsh realities of life in the control of a vast kingdom where millions of slaves russia live as virtual slaves that can be bought and sold. Overcome the rebellion, the disease is rampant (he member example by being inoculated against smallpox). He encouraged the art care, education and medical and evered maneuver through 18th-century Europe with relentless war (no more than overcome Catherine He carved Poland and cruel. Grabbing the Crimea.)
As he did in Nicholas and Alexandra and Pulitzer Prize winner Peter the Great, Massie drown the reader in history and culture of Russia. The author, 82, clearly fascinated by the incredible hero and an end, so does the reader. Even the bone-deep anti-monarchists will find themselves cheering on an absolute despot.
What a charming woman, what a world, what is biography.