title: Frederick the Great
author: Mitford, Nancy
description: 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.