Frederick The Great: The Ruler, The Writer, The Man

by G.P. Gooch

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: History, European History, Biography

408 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

Dr. George Peabody Gooch in the English edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._P._Gooch

Dr. George Peabody Gooch werd op 21 oktober 1873 in Londen geboren. Zijn voornaamste wetenschappelijke opleiding ontving hij aan Trinity College te Cambridge; verder studeerde hij nog in Berlijn en Parijs. Na zijn studie begaf hij zich in de politiek en zetelde van 1906 tot 1910 in het Lagerhuis als liberaal afgevaardigde voor Bath. Toen hijniet herkozen werd verliet hij de politiek, zonder zijn levendige belangstelling voor de landszaken te verliezen. In 1911 werd hij redacteur van The Contemporary Review. In deze functie ontwikkelde hij zich tot een der voornaamste historici van Engeland. Zeer bekend zijn zijn historische werken over Frederik de Grote, Maria Theresia, Katharina de Grote en Lodewijk XV. Deze studies munten uit door degelijk historisch onderzoek en levendige stijl. Gooch was eredoctor van Oxford en Durham en lid van de British Academy; hij is ook voorzitter geweest van de Historical Association.

Reviews

[Mike Hedley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Forget it. If you are a serious student of Frederick the Great, there are far better books about this amazing man around. To be frank, I got only a few pages into this nonsense. The preface describes the "rape of Silesia" and FtG as "repulsive". Since my library copy was printed in 1947, I had to look at the cover- I thought I was reading a book about Stalin! The prose had that "50s US anti-Communist" ring to it. Of course, WWII was fresh in the author's mind when this was written, and anything German was automatically "evil", and of course, WWII was Frederick the Great's fault (no Prussia, no Germany, no Hitler, is the way the logic goes). There are a great many colourful adjectives, little substance, maybe the dates are correct, useless otherwise for research. My essay on FtG will mention this book only to show that there are negative views of FtG, otherwise, it belongs in the bin. While I'm looking to purchase Davis Fraser's much more modern (both in prose, and in enjoyment) book on FtG for my own collection, this work by Gooch wouldn't find a place in my library even if my University library decided to give Gooch to me!

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much european history... and so confusing. But, Gooch made so much clearer. A very good read!