Catherine the Great [Paperback]

"Lively and readable" --Paul Byrne, Irish Times

"Wonderful" --Tom Widger, Sunday Tribune

Empress, empire-builder, intellectual, art-collector, lover - this magnificent new biography does full justice to a truly remarkable ruler.

When Catherine II died in St Petersburg in 1796 the world sensed the loss of the most celebrated monarch of Europe - something no one would have predicted at the birth sixty-seven years before of an obscure German princess, Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, later married off to the pathetic heir to the Russian throne. There were few greater transformations of fortunes in history. Sophie/Catherine had come to rule in her own right over the largest state in existence since the fall of the Roman Empire. She was branded both a usurper and an assassin when she seized power from her wretched husband in 1762. Yet she survived the initial succession crisis, and went on to occupy the Russian throne for thirty-four years. In the process, she turned her new empire from peripheral pariah to European great power.

'A fully rounded portrait is precisely what Dixon has fashioned and what makes this such an excellent book ... what he does, and this most effectively, is bring together in proper balance the many facets of her life as daughter, wife, woman and ruler, and so present Catherine as we have not quite seen her before.' Douglas Smith, Times Literary Supplement 'Dixon is impressive at description, building with intricate detail, and the book swarms with terrific characters' Duncan Fallowell, Daily Express 'Dixon brings his subject to life admirably in this scholarly and sympathetic biography of a remarkable woman' Maria Fairweather, Mail on Sunday Shortlisted for the 2009 Longman - History Today Book of the Year Award [Picture credits] Front of jacket: a detail taken from a portrait of Catherine the Great and Grand Duke Pëter Fëdorovich, c. 1745 © Odessa Fine Arts Museum, Ukraine/Bridgeman Art Library; back of jacket shows Catherine II in the pack of Tsarskoye Selo, engraving after Borovikovsky 1794.

Simon Dixon is Professor of Russian History at University College, London.