I have had the hardcover (ISBN 031210443) in my library since 1981. Since I read it, Massie's call to Russia has been nagging me.
This summer I finally went with a program called Summer Literary Seminars. I pulled my tattered copy from my bookshelves and reread it. I warn those who are looking for light reading that this is a real history, full of detail. It is also exciting and thoroughly awe inspiring. Massie is a consummate historian but he could not go wrong with Peter as his subject.
I advise those who are interested in this period and this place to get their hands on the hardback. It contains maps and pictures that will increase both understanding and enjoyment. If, however, the paperback is the easier choice, my recommendation should not deter you from reading it at all. Given a choice, paperback is better than nothing.
Buy a nice lemon-yellow highlighter before you curl up with this book. Part of the fun will be keeping a record of the places you will want to go, the things you will want to see when-not if-you get to St. Petersburg, Peter's (and Robert's) city of canals, seagulls and art. For once you have read it, you will not rest until you have seen it for yourself.
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of "This is the Place"
In reading the biography of Peter, a great deal of insight is also gained into the society and politics of 17th-18th century Russia and Europe, which in the hands of any other historian might be written in a dry and abstract manner. With Massie, however, he has such an engaging narrative style that the book reads like an action novel at times (such as in describing the Battle of Poltava).
Each personality of monarchs that Peter dealt with in Europe and the Middle East is given an ample introduction in "Peter the Great", which is entertaining reading in its own right. For example, we learn that Augustus II, King of Poland and useless ally of Peter in the Great Northern War, was a sexual philanderer of extreme proportions and that Frederick Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, had his famous collection of giants and suffered from pains that almost drove him to insanity.
Of course, a major portion of the book is devoted to the conflict between Peter and his archnemesis Charles XII in the Great Northern War. Massie recounts how Charles' fanaticism and his legendary aura of invincibility eventually brought the Swedish empire to its knees.
All in all, this is a book that would appeal to the general interest reader, as well as to the Russophile and to the person interested in European history. If you do get this book, try to get the hardcover edition, because a 915+ page book in paperback starts to fall apart after awhile. And you definitely want to have a nice-looking copy of this book to grace your bookshelf for a long time.
