The military genius of his age, Frederick the Great has always aroused extreme opinions.
Some saw him as ‘the greatest man who has ever lived’ while others have accused him of creating the Prussian ultra-nationalism which culminated in Hitler.
But this paternalistic ruler who once said he wanted nothing more than to be remembered as ‘Le Roi des gueux’, the king of the beggars, was also a polymath whose artistic and intellectual abilities amazed eighteenth-century Europe.
David Fraser's acclaimed biography provides the best and most rounded portrait of this extraordinary man.
‘A tour de force. In its perceptions of the man himself, its evocation of political history, its strategic sweep, incisive focus, generosity, scepticism and sheer interest, this is the modern biography that Frederick deserves’ - Sunday Telegraph
‘David Fraser has unravelled the complex strands of Frederick's character and made sense of them in this excellent biography’ - Evening Standard
‘David Fraser, the distinguished general, novelist and author of superb biographies of Field Marshals Alanbrooke and Rommel, presents the case for Frederick's defence, and it is a formidable one...This well-researched and highly readable life rates as an outstanding contribution to the literature about Frederick' - Mail on Sunday
‘David Fraser has written a deeply affectionate biography, but he is never blind to his subject's faults. He is particularly good on the paradoxes in ,Frederick's character...the core of the book, quite rightly, covers the Seven Years War...it is a fascinating story and one still marvels that Prussia survived against the armies of Austria, France and Russia’ - Antony Beevor, Sunday Times
‘The story of the metamorphosis from runaway to king of an expansionist yet precarious state, a king who was his own prime minister and commander-in-chief, is absorbing. David Fraser, formerly one of the country's most distinguished generals, and a biographer of searching insight relishes the detail of the education of a prince’ - Allan Mallinson, The Times
‘He emerges from these pages as Germany's equivalent of America's Thomas Jefferson or Britain's William Ewart Gladstone: a polymath of prodigious energy and formidable intellectual power’ - Economist
Sir David Fraser (1920-2012) was one of Britain's most senior generals. Besides Alanbrooke and the best-selling ‘Knight's Cross: A Life of Erwin Rommel’ he wrote a history of the British Army in the Second World War (‘And We Shall Shock Them’). In total he wrote ten historical novels, and also published his memoirs, ‘Wars and Shadows’, in 2002.
Endeavour Press is the UK’s leading independent publisher of digital books.
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