Peter the Great: His Life and World
A single-volume narrative biography of Tsar Peter I of Russia (1672-1725), following him from his violent childhood through the Grand Embassy to Western Europe, the Great Northern War against Charles XII of Sweden, the building of St. Petersburg, and his forced Westernization of Russia. It won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.
Somewhere in the second decade of the Great Northern War you start counting the pages left (campaign after campaign, with Poland still ahead). One reader found that "portions of the narrative dedicated to Russia's multi-year war against Sweden quickly grow increasingly tedious rather than tantalizing." Another surrendered to reading in shifts: "My lord, it's a thicc boi... I need a second, lighter book to work on to give my brain a break." And the bulk never buys rigor: "There are no sources cited, no references highlighted. Only a select bibliography at the back...the book was written in 1980, when the USSR was still clinging on." Admiration decides what gets skipped: "it doesn't give much attention to the extent of the terror and suffering caused by the massive mobilisation."
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
