Great Catherine: The Life of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia / Carolly Erickson

Prize-winning historian and biographer, Carolly Erickson has created an eminently readable biography that recognizes the humanity of Great Catherine-Empress of Russia-with her majesty and immense capability. Dispelling some of the myths surrounding her voracious sexual appetite, the biographer portrays Catherine as a lonely woman far ahead of her time-achieving greatness in an era when women were executed on a husband's whim.