Peter the Great

Rating:
Summary: A definitive survey by the leading modern Russian historian.
Review: Well-written, lively, and well-documented, this survey is perhaps most interesting for what it reveals about Russian views on Peter's strange mixture of modern and barbarous tendencies. As Klyuchevsky's biases tend to be in line with the views of most Russians, the reader gets a strong flavor of Russia--more so than with certain sentimentalized and inaccurate biographies by Western authors.