Catherine the Great had an extraordinary life - a minor German princeling rising by her wits (and the deposition and murder of her husband) to rule the Russian empire for over 30 years. This study explores what Catherine did with her power and just how much of it she could command. The work thus analyzes the inter-relationships of consensus and control and the interaction of the nobility and bureaucracy in 18th- century Russia, but also illuminates the nature of authority in Europe of "Enlightened Absolutism".
