(Random House, $35)
“Talk about historical slanders,” said Deirdre Donahue in USA Today. “Mention Russian empress Catherine the Great and people start sniggering about death by stallion.” That Robert K. Massie can write a page-turning biography of the 18th-century Russian monarch without even mentioning possible zoophilia is testament to a life story that needs no embellishing. Catherine’s improbable rise to the Russian throne and 34-year reign turn out to be “better-than-any-novel” drama. Born in Germany to a minor prince, she should have foundered in obscurity. But her mother was bent on elevating the family’s status, and opportunity knocked when Russian empress Elizabeth I went looking for a wife for her 14-year-old nephew.
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Massie gives her every benefit of the doubt, said Rebecca Steinitz in The Boston Globe. He explains her serial affairs as the product of the neglect she suffered as a young girl and deems her innocent of a gradual slide toward despotism. Yet Catherine did oversee a “golden age” in Russia, said Patricia Treble in Maclean’s. She expanded the Russian navy and gained access to the Black Sea. She was a pioneer in public health, built the Hermitage museum, and drafted the principles of a liberal Russian constitution. Massie gives all the details, wrapping them together in “a biography as captivating as its subject.”
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