Frederick the Great
King of Prussia
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3.3 • 3 Ratings
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- £9.49
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- £9.49
Publisher Description
SPECTATOR, NEW STATESMAN, SUNDAY TIMES AND TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015
Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, dominated the 18th century in the same way that Napoleon dominated the start of the 19th - a force of nature, a caustic, ruthless, brilliant military commander, a monarch of exceptional energy and talent, and a knowledgeable patron of artists, architects and writers, most famously Voltaire. From early in his reign he was already a legendary figure - fascinating even to those who hated him.
Tim Blanning's brilliant new biography recreates a remarkable era, a world which would be swept away shortly after Frederick's death by the French Revolution. Equally at home on the battlefield or in the music room at Frederick's extraordinary miniature palace of Sanssouci, Blanning draws on a lifetime's obsession with the 18th century to create a work that is in many ways the summation of all that he has learned in his own rich and various career. Frederick's spectre has hung over Germany ever since: an inspiration, a threat, an impossible ideal - Blanning at last allows us to understand him in his own time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Blanning (The Romantic Revolution), retired professor of modern European history at Cambridge University, ambitiously explores the origins, outlook, and impact of Frederick II (1712 1786) in this wide-ranging biography. The enigmatic king was a man of contrasts: miserable during his strict military upbringing, he later proved an adept and enterprising wartime commander; a cosmopolitan man of letters more comfortable in French than his native German, his rule helped consolidate the foundations of a coherent German identity. Harangued by his father for preferring reading to "hunting, drinking, or praying," Frederick nonetheless held himself out as "a beacon of reason," establishing in Berlin an open and tolerant society unprecedented at the time. But as much as Frederick enjoyed exchanging poetry with philosophers, his reign was defined by the Seven Years' War, a grueling conflict spanning four continents and entangling the Prussian forces in simultaneous fighting on five fronts. The youth who ran away from his barracks became a man "who could hold the balance between the other great powers of Europe," yet expressed reluctance to return to Berlin even at the close of war. Blanning's lively prose and command of the economic, social, and artistic currents of 18th-century Europe make this an attractive book even for those unaccustomed to scholarly reading. Maps & illus.
