If this sounds dry, and boring, well, it wasn't. By 1800, more than 2 million Russians had been inoculated as well.

Meanwhile, Catherine was educated and enlightened - she corresponded regularly with Voltaire and Diderot spent two years trying to create an enlightened system of government, with a document called the Nakaz, (which ultimately failed) - even before the Americans wrote the Constitution she even had herself inoculated against smallpox in 1780, to show that it was safe. This is in the 1700s, when doctors thought it was still an good idea to drain your blood when you were sick, America hadn't even signed the Declaration of Independence, and a huge percentage of the Russian population was poor or even serfs. Catherine embraced the Russian language and culture though Peter always hated it and wanted to return to Germany.īasically, Catherine was AWESOME. Elizabeth never married and after she seized power years later, she decided to that her heir, her nephew Peter (grandson of Peter the Great) should marry Catherine, his cousin, so they could produce an heir and ensure that Peter's lineage would continue. For example, I had no idea that both Catherine AND her husband Peter were actually German - Catherine (born Sophia) was a minor German princess whose mother's brother had originally been engaged to Empress Elizabeth, though he died while they were still betrothed. All the 18th century history I remember is mostly about the American Revolution.

I never really knew very much about European history during the 18th century - I've read War and Peace (though I've forgotten most of it) and I remember some stuff I've read about the French kings and the Revolution, but that's pretty much it. This time I let myself start it a month early because it's about 600 pages long. Normally, I allow even less time, since I like to keep the book fresh in my mind for the discussion.

After a few pages of this one, I was hooked, and would have kept right on reading it except I try very hard to wait until the month before to start it. I was looking for a great biography for my library book group and this kept popping up on the radar, and after narrowing the selection down to three or four books, I took them all out to lunch with me. Seriously, I'll bet I could read nothing but nonfiction for the rest of the year and never finish all the books on my list. I keep finding more and more nonfiction I want to read. I think 2013 is going to be The Year of the Great Nonfiction Reads for me.

Catherine the great massie