richardr's review
Catherine the Great belonged to a class of monarch that hasn't existed now for centuries and is very hard to place in contemporary terms: the enlightened despot. On the one hand, she corresponded with Voltaire and Diderot, re-ordered Russia's government and legal system, championed vaccination by example and derided charlatans like Cagliostro. Her correspondence is across a distinctly European context, writing to Austria, Britain, Prussia, Sweden and Denmark. Countries like China and Persia are referred to with contempt. She founded cities like Odesa and Kherson, which she lauded as being as beautiful as Saint Petersburg.
On the other, she came to power through a coup d'etat and spent much of her reign following expansionist military policies, leading to the annexation of Crimea through a series of wars against the Ottoman Empire and the partition of Poland. When the French Revolution took place towards the end of her reign, her immediate reaction was to endorse Burke's view of it as anarchism and to proclaim that equality did not exist in nature. The suppression of the Kościuszko uprising was entirely justified as a reaction against Jacobinism.
On the other, she came to power through a coup d'etat and spent much of her reign following expansionist military policies, leading to the annexation of Crimea through a series of wars against the Ottoman Empire and the partition of Poland. When the French Revolution took place towards the end of her reign, her immediate reaction was to endorse Burke's view of it as anarchism and to proclaim that equality did not exist in nature. The suppression of the Kościuszko uprising was entirely justified as a reaction against Jacobinism.
jiji17's review against another edition
Read for research purposes for my history coursework
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