Peter the Great

His Life and World

By: Robert K. Massie

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson

Length: 43 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

This superbly told story brings to life one of the most remarkable rulers––and men––in all of history and conveys the drama of his life and world. The Russia of Peter's birth was very different from the Russia his energy, genius, and ruthlessness shaped. Crowned co-Tsar as a child of ten, after witnessing bloody uprisings in the streets of Moscow, he would grow up propelled by an unquenchable curiosity, everywhere looking, asking, tinkering, and learning, fired by Western ideas.

We see Peter in his 20s traveling "incognito" with his ambassadors to the courts of Europe; as the victorious soldier proclaimed Emperor; as the simple workman at his forge; and as the visionary statesman who single-handedly created a formidable world power. Impetuous and stubborn, bawdy and stern, relentless in his perseverance, he was capable of the greatest generosity and the greatest cruelty.

©1980 Robert K. Massie (P)1991 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Enthralling.... As fascinating as any novel and more so than most!" ( New York Times Book Review)

Am I treating life.

This was a very deep dive into the life of a very interesting man. If you enjoy learning about historical figures I highly recommend.

Accurate title

His life and WORLD indeed. This is much more than a detailed biography of a fascinating man. Massie includes extensive character studies of every major figure on the European scene during Peter's rule, with major digressions into the social and political landscape in which they operated. The result is a sweeping appraisal of the age in Russia and its European and Ottoman environs, filled with evocative detail which brings it all to life. I found it most convenient to listen in fairly small bites over a long period of time and enjoyed the book extremely. Some of this history was fairly new to me, and following the peripatetic and much larger than life Peter through his extraordinary life was a great way to get to know it.

There is a good deal of military and campaign narrative in the book for which it is helpful to have some maps close at hand. The writing is of such a high caliber, however, that even those who are bored by military history will likely find enough colorful detail, along with glimpses of a plethora of intriguing characters of all stripes, to maintain interest. And in the end this is definitely not a book dominated by battles. Even in a narrative which is so wide ranging and all encompassing, only one subject dominates--the towering personage of Peter.

My only regret about this huge book is that so much of it will pass out of my memory in short order. Perhaps in a few years I will listen again, and that is high praise about so long a book from a person who almost never rereads.

Finally, though the book is decades old, written before the end of the Soviet Union, it still stands up very well, even read by Frederick Davidson in his sometimes irritatingly mannered style. I recommend it highly to any fan of well written popular history.

Engaging, easy to follow, and well narrated.

Mr. Massie's book is very engaging and flows with an easy narrative. The scenes and people are very well described, giving the reader a rich visual and psychological picture of Peter the Great's Russia. He does a great job of detailing not only great events but also such things as interior and exterior architecture, hairstyles, crime statistics, the different materials shoes were made of, what contemporary maps looked like, food eaten by peasants and at court, and etc. He also does great service to describing the situation of women in general but also the specific details of women whose lives came to bear on the story of Peter and current events. The many characters and parties are easy to keep track of, and all in all this book is a clear picture of the life and times of Peter the Great. The narration was clear and engaging - though I find that British accents can be sometimes hard to understand, I had no such problem with this audiobook. I would recommend this for any person, not only Russophiles or history buffs.

Excellent Book!

This audio version of a fantastic book is perfect. The narrator is grand, capable of pronouncing russian names without a problem, and keeping the right rythm, not reading to slow or to quickly.
The book is written, grouping the events and actions surrounding certain persons or places, or stages and attitudes of Peter's life, into chapters. It does not progress chronologically from event to event, be they unrelated, that the reader would soon feel themselves asking "who is he? and how does he relate?" It is excellently structured, it reads well. I give it a top notch rating.

I ALREADY WROTE A REVIEW

AND YOU PEOPLE LOST IT! WHAT THE HELL! yOU DIDN'T EVEN SAVE MY STARS. i PUT A LOT OF WORK INTO THAT REVIEW. WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?

Great story poorly read

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Great story, you could not make this stuff up

What other book might you compare Peter the Great to and why?

Catherine the Great, also good history, well researched and full of interesting details

Would you be willing to try another one of Frederick Davidson’s performances?

Only if he did not have to struggle unsuccessfully with Russian names. Here his lack of Russian was very distracting as the names were often almost incomprehensible to anyone knowing any Russian at all.

Great "read"

Would you listen to Peter the Great again? Why?

Pretty good read. Great story to tell and it's well written and well narrated. Peter was great.

Fresh Perspective on European History

Robert K. Massie more than delivers on the promising title of this sweeping book. Massie presents an intense man with the vision, the autocratic means, and the personal perseverance to pull his nation into the modern world. Fascinating detours include descriptions of the histories of the powers with which Peter the Great interacts, summaries of the international issues that concerned them, and descriptions of the social and economic conditions of the day. Presented from the perspective of Eastern Europe, the early eighteenth century becomes something more than British and French concern over the Spanish succession. The end of this lengthy exposition left me longing for more.

The excellence of Massie???s prose was unfortunately undermined by Frederick Davidson???s pompous reading. I would have expected a professional narrator to moderate his non-standard pronunciation of words like clerk (not clark) and issue (not issssssue). More egregiously, Davidson seems wholly incapable of providing character voices for quotations: even Peter the Great is rendered in a child-like, even effeminate, falsetto.

Great pronunciation!

Would you consider the audio edition of Peter the Great to be better than the print version?

Yes, because I can listen while working at my desk.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Peter the Great?

I was surprised that he beheaded so many traitors. I never knew about that.

This is one I'll listen to again

I really enjoyed this book. Robert Massie covers the history of everything going on that had any influence on Peter. I would recommend this book to anyone who knows little or nothing about Russian history. It's a good story and you get a picture of life in the 16th-17th century.