Peter the Great: His Life and World

 

Peter the Great: His Life and World – Robert K. Massie

Note to self: Anytime I browse emails advertising Kindle Books at a discount (usually $2 or less), when in doubt, buy it. Take a chance.  When I came across this one, I wavered.  A quick check of the book on Amazon made me even more skeptical. It was over 800 pages.  Did I really feel up to the challenge to read a biography of a 17^th century tsar that was that lengthy?  Fate was smiling as I took a chance and purchased it.  It ended up being one of the best biography/history books I’ve ever read.  Top 10 for sure.  And I read a lot of histories and biographies. Oh what a pleasurable experience it was reading this! 

There are many times when I come across a great book, I think that someone (if they haven’t already) should make this into a movie.   If the book is particularly detailed, perhaps a 3-5 part series on a provider such as Netflix.   Well, this particular endeavor would warrant about five seasons, each season having 12-15 episodes.  Yes, it was that detailed.  Of course, “detailed” means nothing if the book isn’t well written.  In fact, it is often a very heavy strike against. Too many authors tend to get weighted down by their own words. Fortunately this wasn’t the case here.

Peter Alekseyevich Romanov, better known as Peter I or Peter the Great, was first tsar of the eventual infamous Romanov dynasty that would reign roughly 200 years.  This book covers….well….everything.  It needs to be pointed out that the subtitle of this book “His Life and World” needs to be taken quite literally.  There’s a lot about his life, but maybe even more about his world.  One comes away after reading this with a very thorough understanding of everything that was occurring wherever Peter happened to be at the time.

Example: When Peter visits France in the early 1710s, the author takes a huge detour with an entire lengthy chapter about the country of France, its capital, its people, its history, its sights and its smells. Then, we get another chapter on the leader of France, King Louis XIV.  Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be a book about Peter the Great?  Why so much about France? Such detail may seem unnecessary, but this author is so gifted that he proves this assumption wrong.  Not only does it help the reader fully understand the world and surroundings of Peter the Great, but Massie does such a masterful job with engaging the reader, we don’t mind the diversion. In fact, we welcome it.  As I said, this book would need several seasons with many episodes if it were converted for the visual arts.

So what was it that made Peter “great”? It should be pointed out that history tells us that it wasn’t sort of any reflection of the man’s character. No, 18^th century leaders were often rapacious and cruel. It came with the territory.  Still, even Peter comes across as better than most.  What makes him “great” was his ability to transform Russia from a backwards medieval country to a contemporary of its neighbors as is (finally) starts to embrace modern elements of the many adjacent European countries. A move that wasn’t necessarily welcome by the most obdurate high-ranking personalities of ancient Russia, but one that would prove necessary as time went on. 

Peter had an insatiable desire to learn as much as he could with what was going on in the world around him.  As geographically massive as Russia is, we must remember that it was always very isolated from other nations and took pride that it wasn’t influenced by modern neighbors with what was looked at by many as “evil” progress.  One particular amusing episode is when Peter realizes that many of his European neighbors don’t feel necessary to keep and maintain full length beards, so he lines up his high-ranking officials of his country and proceeds to personally barber them.  From their reaction, you would think he was torturing them on the rack.

His big love was shipbuilding and much of this book is devoted to his insatiable appetite of learning everything and anything he could about the craft and the world at sea.  Plus, learning about such an endeavor can actually help his fledgling country since they’re separated from many neighbors by massive bodies of water such as the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. The fact that Peter was the tsar of Russia didn’t stop him from literally working in the shipyards right next to the common laborer. He relished the experience.

Becoming a great leader meant that wars needed to be waged against neighboring countries to establish respect and credibility.  This wasn’t uncommon in the 18^th century.  If a nation wasn’t strong and willing to conquer others, it wouldn’t be long before they, themselves would be conquered.  Much of this book details the prolonged wars that Russia had with neighboring Sweeden in the North and the Ottoman Empire (what is now Turkey) in the South.  There are a lot of details here about these decades-long conflicts.  A lot of battles, a lot of leaders, a lot of strategy and suffering, but as mentioned it’s all told in a very engaging and informative method.  You never get overwhelmed or bored by such detail.

There are other episodes within the book that were so enthralling that they warranted their OWN book.  For all I know, this may be the case.  Example, Peter has a strained relationship with his son Alexei, and actually ends up having him killed.  Killing your own son?  Again, sadly not uncommon for the times when dealing with Kings and Queens and Tsars. While such an episode definitely was not as rare as one might think, it’s still tragic, and the many details help the reader immerse themselves in such a world.

There is so much more here.  I’m really only hitting a few highlights.  This thing sucked me in with unimaginable ferocity.  Related note: This book has 870 pages.  Now, normally when a history book advertises itself as that lengthy, the reader may heave a small sigh of relief knowing that the actual ‘reading’ portion is probably only, say, 600 pages and the last few hundred is devoted to sources, indices, bibliography, etc.  Not here.  Nope.  ALL 870 pages is the actual story of Peter and his life (and the times). As I said, well worth it.

In fact, upon conclusion of this book, I was THRILLED (Good Lord, am I a book geek or what?) to find out that this biography is actually part one of a tetralogy!   I really can’t emphasize how excited I am to read more about the ill-fated Romanov dynasty from this author.

Simply one of the best books I’ve ever read.

The Last Kingdom

 

The Last Kingdom – Bernard Cornwell

After quickly digesting and thoroughly enjoying Bernard Cornwell’s “King Arthur” trilogy, I decided that I simply couldn’t leave the remainder of this author’s work untouched.  The good news (maybe bad news) is that this guy has a LOT of other books out there. Where to start the remainder of my journey?  Well, this “Last Kingdom” series contains thirteen books. Wow.  OK. We’ll start there. The first volume (called “The Last Kingdom”) contains many of the same flavors as the King Arthur books. More importantly, these books (at least the first one) has the same level of high quality.  So far,  with one down and twelve to go, it’s money well-spent.

The main difference is that the King Arthur books are based on Legend whereas this series is based on actual History.  In many cases it might be hard to distinguish. The focus here is the 9^th and 10^th century Viking invasions of Denmark onto neighboring (what we now know as) England.  So the tales within this journey are very harsh and bloody. History isn’t always pretty.

Our story starts with one of those invasions from the north.  The tale is told through the eyes of an English noblemen Uhtred.  He is only nine when his homeland is invaded by the Danes.  Whereas the majority of the English are slaughtered, Uhtred is spared by the Danes. Why? Well, they admire the kid’s courage.  He has the nerve to attempt to fearlessly attack the Danish leader. Of course, there’s not much damage a nine-year-old can do, so the Danes essentially kidnap him thinking that if he could be turned, he might just be useful.

So Uhtred isn’t treated as a slave, and we watch his growth into a bold strong warrior and by the time he’s twenty, he is now, in his heart, a Dane. And a fine fighter.  His connections to his homeland of England weren’t necessary strong, so it really isn’t that this young man has any sort of yearning to go back to being on the side of his homeland.  The Danish made him a man, and that’s where his loyalty lies.

Well, let’s just say that things end up getting a lot more complicated.  When civil war happens among the Danes while they’re attempting to conquer Wessex (the ‘last kingdom’), Uhtred finds himself conflicted and things get mightily complex and interesting.

As with the ‘Arthur’ books, the Christian religion is treated rather harshly by author Bernard Cornwell.  We see the priests, friars, nuns, and the general Christian population as weak and humble.  The stronger pagan Danes simply can’t understand this way of thinking.  Their God is the mighty Odin and feel as though it’s much better to have such a deity on one’s side when the objective is conquering, raping, and pillaging.

Like many good books, this novel contains a lot of individual stories within the main story.  Everything here is told in a way that makes the reader not want to stop and continue to turn the pages.  Sometimes the 10^th-century names of people and places can get a bit overwhelming but this is really par for the course if the author seriously wants to maintain truth when telling stories of history.

Anxiously eager to start book 2.

Conclave

 

Conclave – Robert Harris

Not only was this a great book, but it was somewhat of a relief.  I’ve been a hardcore reader for a long time now. I’ve been blogging for almost 14 years.  When I started reviewing books on my blog I wasn’t really sure if I would keep up the momentum. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but like a lot of “good ideas”, many of us give up after a while. So I’m actually quite proud of my accomplishment of keeping my review site alive.  Well, for whatever reason, I haven’t been reading as much as I used to, and the really sad thing is that the ratio of “not so good” books to “good books” has seemed to rise as of late.  It’s made me wonder: is it the books that are really not that good? Or is it me? Maybe I’m changing. Maybe I don’t have the passion to read anymore.  It didn’t help when I had a rather negative view of two famous authors as of late – Rick Atkinson and Ken Follett.

So when I picked this book up and enjoyed it so much that I finished the whole thing in about 4 days, I breathed a very heavy sigh of relief.  Yes, I still love books. No, my passion has not waned.  Everything is ok.  This book was a much-needed pallet cleanser.

Robert Harris is one of those authors who hasn’t failed me yet. It’s rare to come across an author where you (me anyway) like everything they’ve ever written. Even some of the best authors manage to release a turkey from time to time. So far that hasn’t happened with Robert Harris.  This offering received a lot of publicity since it was made into a movie, and the movie was highly regarded as well. (I haven’t seen it yet)

I was tempted to immediately pick this book up when the rave reviews started appearing, but my OCD tendencies wouldn’t allow it. You see, I have to read everything in order by an author. I know, strange. Maybe it’s because I want to see the author evolve?  Anyway, Conclave was well worth the wait.

The ‘story’ here, for the most part, isn’t exactly a riveting tale. I think the appeal is that Robert Harris is allowing us front-row seats to a historical process where the doors (and even the windows) are literally locked so no one has ever been able to witness the goings on of a particular process.  The pope has died.  The cardinals meet in the Vatican to elect a new one.  We get to watch, feel, and absorb the process.  Unlike the election of a U.S. President, a pope is pope mostly for life.  So it’s possible in one’s lifetime to only be exposed to the process maybe 5-6 times as opposed to every four years.

The story is told through the eyes of the Dean of the Cardinals, Jacopo Lomeli.  It’s an awfully fun thing to watch.  Unlike most elections, a pope is supposed to “not want” to be pope in order to make a good pope.  You know, the whole humility thing.  Of course, we all know better than that.  You can’t help but wonder, throughout history, how many times a cardinal “almost made it” yet, had to act gracious and humble when the pontiff was awarded to someone else.

In all fairness, there are some interesting twists in this novel, so it’s not all “by the book” (pun not intended).  The big issue within the Catholic Church these days (like everywhere else in politics) is the friction between the liberals and the conservatives.  In the early 1960s, Pope John XXIII spearheaded the second Vatican council and the church became a lot more liberal, and the trend has continued to this day.  This hasn’t made the far-right in the church happy in the slightest, but nothing is ever perfect.

So we read a lot about the balloting, the campaigning, the pros and cons, the factions. And even though it is politics as usual, you never get the feeling that any of these cardinals are evil nor fakes.  No, they all truly want the church to prosper, they just don’t all agree as what outcome will best serve the purpose.

Without giving away any spoilers, the ending of the book was a letdown for some.  It wasn’t anticlimactic or anything, in fact, it was almost a tad too much of a stretch that many readers thought was a bit unnecessary.  The way I viewed it, the story was so good, it didn’t really need an “ah-ha” at the end.  But it certainly didn’t ruin the experience for the majority.

This is one of those books that when it’s time to actually select a new pope (assuming I’m alive), I’ll probably pay a lot more attention since I know have seen how the inner workings operate, and it was a fascinating view.   A great book for the religious and the secular.