Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Frederick the Great

Frederick the Great

Mitford, Nancy
Schillinger, Liesl

Paperback

Series: New York Review Books Classics

Historical FiguresMilitary BiographiesGerman History

Publisher Price: $19.95

ISBN10: 1590176235
ISBN13: 9781590176238
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Published: Jul 23 2013
Pages: 250
Weight: 0.63
Height: 0.60 Width: 5.22 Depth: 7.99
Language: English
An entertaining royal biography of Prussian king Frederick the Great--a fascinating character with conflicting visions of authority and reform, power and art--from one of Britain's most piercing observers of social manners (New York Times).

The Prussian king Frederick II is today best remembered for successfully defending his tiny country against the three great European powers of France, Austria, and Russia during the Seven Years' War. But in his youth, tormented by a spectacularly cruel and dyspeptic father, the future military genius was drawn to the flute and French poetry, and throughout his long life counted nothing more important than the company of good friends and great wits. This was especially evident in his longstanding, loving, and vexing relationship with Voltaire. An absolute ruler who was allergic to pomp, a non-hunter who wore no spurs, a reformer of great zeal who maintained complete freedom of the press and religion and cleaned up his country's courts, a fiscal conservative and patron of the arts, the builder of the rococo palace Sans Souci and improver of the farmers' lot, maddening to his rivals but beloved by nearly everyone he met, Frederick was--notwithstanding a penchant for merciless teasing--arguably the most humane of enlightened despots.

In Frederick the Great, a richly entertaining biography of one of the eighteenth century's most fascinating figures, the trademark wit of the author of Love in a Cold Climate finds its ideal subject.

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