Robert k massie author biography format

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Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info and giveaways by email. Join Member Login Patron Login. Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Most Anticipated Books of ! Massie Biography Robert K. Books by this author. More about membership! Nicholas and Alexandra was published ten years later to much critical acclaim.

What emerges is a study in depth of the reign of Nicholas, and for perhaps the first time we meet the actors in the drama face to face in their proper setting. InMassie and his wife coauthored Journey, chronicling their young son's courage in facing his condition and describing how the disease affected their own lives as parents.

Journey contains a harsh indictment of America's "pitifully inadequate health plans, the workings of hospitals and the politics of the Red Cross which, charged the Massies, places the welfare of drug companies above that of hemophilia victims," according to Newsweek reviewer Margo Jefferson. Hegeman echoed the authors' frustration in describing "the grotesque folly of trying to raise enough money for the Hemophilia Society through charity balls and premieres and the inadequacy of the 'patchwork' of uncoordinated charities and agencies set up to help special need groups.

After completing Journey, Massie once again turned his attention to the lush panorama of the Russian past. Although now familiar with the time period encompassing the life of the Tsarevich, there were still many areas of history with which Massie was unfamiliar. There were glimpses of his character, stories and legends about him, but I couldn't find any biography which really captured him.

After thinking about it for a while, I thought I could try one. He was fortunate in receiving a great deal of both official and scholarly assistance from the Soviet people who continue to have great reverence for Peter as one of the greatest of Russian heroes. Considered the architect of modern Russia, Peter the Great was an imposing figure obsessed with forcing a backward Russian society into step with seventeenth-century Europe.

Robert k massie author biography format

Off came the flowing beards, gone were the long robes with their drooping sleeves; the monarch abolished such traditional emblems of the old order in favor of a "German" style of dress that allowed for the freedom of movement necessary for an active, forward-thinking people. Peter the Great went on to establish Russia as a major power.

Flooding his homeland with Western technology through the importation of thousands of craftsmen and military personnel, raising the educational standards of his fellow Russians by setting up schools and sending young men abroad to study arts and sciences yet unknown in Russia, and defeating longtime opponent Charles XII of Sweden in the battle of Poltava inPeter crowned his growing empire with the city of St.

Petersburgcapital of the new Russia and his "window into Europe," which he commanded be built upon the northern marshes bordering the Gulf of Finland. A London Times critic felt that Massie's obvious admiration for his subject tends to color his view of the facts and remarked that "the urge to show Peter in the best light must spring partly from the relief of writing about a monarch who could, and did, do everything for himself, after devoting so many years to Peter's descendants who, between them, barely seemed able to tie up a ribbon or fasten a stud.

Peter's spotty education, his voracious curiosity, his epileptic convulsions, his talent with his hands, his ignorance of literature, his humor and his terror—all are merely reported and forgiven, like the weather. Nine roberts k massie author biography format in the writing, the book is a narrative account of Britain's retreat from "splendid isolationism" after the crisis at Fashoda, the battle that resulted in France's cessation of efforts towards building a rival colonial empire afterDreadnought covers the period from to August,when Britain came to France's aid in World War I.

Taking its title from the name given to the heavily armored and gunned battleship H. Dreadnought, designed by the British to render all other navies obsolete, Massie's lengthy volume uses the naval antagonism between Britain and Germany as a point of departure. Organizing such a broad range of cataclysmic events into a comprehensive format is no easy task, and some reviewers found fault with the book's areas of concentration.

Stanley Weintraub commented in the New York Times Book Review: "Since Massie uses the lens of the British-Germany rivalry, the picture that emerges of the European powder keg and its multiple fuses, all sputtering at different speeds, is out of focus, although dramatic nevertheless. However, Dreadnought was praised for the characteristically engaging narrative style of its author.

Commending Massie's sharp eye for detail and his ability to vividly portray characters, Geoffrey Moorhouse observed in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, "one will not forget. Bismarck working in his office, watched by his dog Tiras, who terrorized all visitors. In Massie completed his equally well-researched sequel to Dreadnought. Wolfram Kandinsky Narrator.

Quotes by Robert K. Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. Learn more. But Nicholas, whose hand was lighter than that of any tsar before him, is "Bloody Nicholas". In human terms, this is irony rich and dramatic, the more so because Nicholas knew what he was called. See all Robert K. Massie's quotes ».

Which book would you like to read for our October 15 - November 15 European Royalty group read? The Boleyn Wife by Brandy Purdy. Sign in to vote ». Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikidata item. American journalist and historian — For other uses, see Robert Massie disambiguation. Suzanne Rohrbach. Early life and education [ edit ].

Career [ edit ]. Personal life and death [ edit ]. Awards and honors [ edit ]. Bibliography [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. The New York Times. March 13, The Washington Times. Los Angeles Times Jacket Copy blog. Retrieved June 25, PEN America.