“[A] superb biography….Scholarly, refreshing, commonsensical, and compelling, vividly portraying the charismatic Empress and her times.” —Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Sashenka Simon Dixon’s Catherine the Great is a complete and revealing portrait of an extraordinary leader, chronicling her rise to power and her remarkable reign as empress of Russia. Catherine Merridale, author of Ivan’s War, calls this definitive history, “attractive, engaging, and very intelligent….Established fans of the Russian empress will find plenty of new material and those who are meeting her for the first time will be dazzled.”