The Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin
Modern Russian historians from Martin Malia to Gregory Freeze  barely mention the subject of this massive biography, which  illuminates the history of the European revolutionary era. In  Volume 10 of The Story of Civilization: Rousseau and Revolution,  the Durants pull into focus the wonderfully woven story of  Prince Potemkin, Catherine the Great's secret husband and  confidant. The palace intrigue is now magnified by this  well-documented work by journalist Montefiore (the Sunday Times,  the New York Times), who studied history at Cambridge.  Montefiore's job as biographer is to aggrandize his subject, and  so Potemkin here assumes nearly mythical stature in 18th-century  history. His enemies and detractors, mainly other European  statesmen, propounded preposterous stories of fake villages in  the Crimea and other events that diminished Potemkin's  accomplishments. Montefiore has restored him to a prominent  place in Russian history, showing that his accomplishments were  greater, in Russian terms, than those of any other Russian save  Peter the Great: "Potemkin was unique in combining the creative  ideas of an entrepreneur with the force of a soldier and the  foresight of a statesman." Highly recommended for academic and  public libraries. Harry Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. Syst.,  IolaCopyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.