Until his retirement in 2009, Tim Blanning was a professor of modern European history at the University of Cambridge, and he remains a fellow of Sidney Sussex College and of the British Academy. He is the general editor of The Oxford History of Modern Europe and The Short Oxford History of Europe. He is also the author of The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture, which won a prestigious German prize and was short-listed for the British Academy Book Prize, the New York Times bestseller The Pursuit of Glory, The Triumph of Music, and The Romantic Revolution. In 2000 he was awarded a Pilkington Prize for teaching by the University of Cambridge.
“Writing Frederick’s biography . . . requires a diverse set of
skills: expertise in eighteenth-century diplomatic and military
history, including the intricacies of the Holy Roman Empire; a
familiarity with the music, architecture and intellectual
traditions of Northern Europe; and, not least, a profound sense of
human psychology, the better to grasp the makeup of this complex
and tormented man. Fortunately, Tim Blanning . . . has all of these
skills in abundance. . . . Frederick the Great offers a portrait in
chiaroscuro, full of intricate shadings and startling
contrasts.”—The Wall Street Journal
“As Tim Blanning makes clear in a new biography that is at once
scholarly and highly readable, Frederick the Great fully deserves
history’s judgment of him as a transformative figure of the second
millennium. . . . [Blanning] has given us a superb portrait of an
enlightened despot, equally at home on the battlefield and in the
opera house, both utterly ruthless and culturally
refined.”—Commentary
“Methodically but not ploddingly, Blanning, in clear thinking and
prose, investigates all aspects of Frederick’s personality and
reign. . . . The last word on this significant king, for years to
come.”—Booklist (starred review)
“[A] masterly biography . . . Blanning brilliantly brings to life
one of the most complex characters of modern European history,
building up a rich picture of his very active mental life and the
strange social setting that he constructed around himself.”—The
Telegraph (five stars)
“Superlative . . . an almost sculptural, three-dimensional
rendering of Frederick, one that enables its vast and protean
subject to be viewed from a multiplicity of angles . . . a
supremely nuanced account, abounding in novel assessments and
insights . . . This biography finds [Blanning] at the height of his
powers and offers major reassessments of almost every aspect of
Frederick’s career.”—Literary Review
“In Tim Blanning, Frederick has found the ideal biographer. . . .
Blanning evokes Old Fritz in all his cold-blooded brilliance,
ranging from the king’s operatic tastes to his gastronomic and
erotic predilections.”—The Sunday Times
“[Frederick the Great] is sure to be the standard English-language
account for many years. It instructs; it entertains; and it
surprises. Blanning shows that this hereditary monarch, born
in Berlin in 1712, could be more radical than most leaders
today.”—The Spectator
“[Blanning] has a reach that exceeds that of most of his peers. . .
. This book is a rich, dense but accessible work of high
scholarship.”—The Times
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