Easy to read but the author devotes too many pages speculating on Frederick's sexuality (something which we will not have a definite answer anyway as Frederick is dead already and cannot confirm or deny the author's speculations) rather than focusing his narration of Frederick's life on his actions as a ruler of Prussia and his conduct of diplomacy and war. ( )

Frederick the Great is one of those endlessly contradictory figures, who can be roped in to justify almost any theory of history: enlightened authoritarian, populist aesthete, atheist champion of the "protestant cause", German nationalist icon who despised the German language and its culture, the military genius who lost as many battles as he won, and the man who launched the unprovoked invasion of a neighbouring territory three months after publishing an anti-war book.

Blanning's strategy in this fascinating biography seems to be to embrace the contradictions without taking sides, as far as that's possible, and to look into the separate strains in Frederick's political and personal situation that were pushing him in these opposing directions. Key, of course, is Frederick's terrible relationship with his father: ruthlessly bullied up to the moment Frederick William died, he enthusiastically took up everything his father hated: art, music, clothes, porcelain, philosophy, free-thinking (and conversely, he took against hunting, drinking, and heterosexuality...). But, thanks to his father's philistinism, he had a very poor education, with all kinds of gaps that couldn't easily be filled later in life. And, in an age when great powers like France and Austria were virtually bankrupt, he had inherited a huge, low-mileage army and enormous piles of hard cash that the miserly Frederick William hadn't had any interest in spending. It would have needed a lot of willpower not to start at least a small war, and the strategically vital Austrian province of Silesia seemed to be there for the taking...

We are led fairly efficiently through the many conflicts of the Silesian wars, the Seven Years War, and the Bavarian Succession, although it's pretty clear that Blanning's first interest is not military history: he conscientiously gives us a sketch-map of each of the important battles, but rarely describes them in the sort of detail that would make a map useful. The diplomacy and strategic manoeuvring in the background is much more fascinating than the battlefield action, but it does become clear that Frederick was better at emotional leadership than at battlefield tactics. When he won a battle he got all the credit because he was so much admired by his subordinates (if not by his fellow-generals). And when he didn't win, he often managed to limit the damage by moving more quickly and decisively after the battle than his opponents.

The more interesting part of the book deals with cultural and social issues. The interesting puzzle of how Berlin-Potsdam failed to become a really important musical centre, despite having a ruler who was a talented and enthusiastic musician. Mannheim and Vienna were the real musical hotspots of the time, with London not far behind. Blanning gives a lot of the blame for that to Frederick's micro-management, and to his tastes that were frozen somewhere in the 1730s. Innovative musicians would have been permanently at war with him, and word soon got around that he didn't take kindly to anyone who wanted to move on to a better-paid post elsewhere. If you were a talented soprano (or a French philosophe) you might well find a Berlin Wall restricting your movements well before 1960. So he was left with competent but not top-flight musicians, like J J Quantz and C P E Bach.

Language is the really odd thing: Frederick seems to have treated his native language in much the same way that 19th century colonial administrators thought of African and Asian languages: useful for giving orders and condescending to the locals, but scarcely a medium for high culture. French was insisted on for official business, and was the language Frederick wrote his many books and poems in — one of the causes of his famous row with Voltaire was his expectation that the great man would be willing to act as his spelling-checker. At a moment when all Europe was rushing out to buy copies of Werther (and the fancy-dress to go with it), Frederick was publishing a pamphlet arguing that it was impossible for German culture to match the achievements of French and Italian. Lessing, the most distinguished Prussian writer of the time, whom Frederick took even less notice of than he did of Goethe, charitably suggested that Frederick's highly-publicised contempt actually encouraged German writers to try harder.

Of course, the thing we really want from a 21st century biography of Frederick is to follow him into the bedroom! Blanning admits that there's no likelihood now that we will ever get conclusive information about Frederick's real sexual preferences from someone who was there at the time, but decides on the basis of the huge amount of circumstantial evidence (from the all-male parties and homoerotic artworks at Sanssouci to Frederick's abandonment of the pretence of living with his wife the moment his father was out of the way) that it's silly to try to represent him as heterosexual, as many earlier historians have done.

Very readable and interesting biography. ( )

Indeed, Thomas Carlyle had in mind Frederick and Napoleon when he famously declared the history of the world to be “but the biography of great men”.

Frederick II, King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, raised Prussia to the status of a great European power.

Through war, diplomacy and domestic reforms he created the core of an Imperial Germany that was to emerge a century later.

In wars that pitted Prussia against France, Russia, Sweden and Austria, Frederick won renown as a battlefield tactician and military strategist.

As a legend in his own lifetime Frederick was labelled “the Great” by his contemporaries and bred a cult of his personality that lasted for more than a century.

When Napoleon invaded Prussia in 1806 and captured Berlin 20 years after Frederick’s death, the Emperor went on a pilgrimage to Frederick’s tomb in Potsdam, saying that he would not have been there if Frederick were still alive.

Less than a decade later, Prussian troops tipped the balance leading to Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.

The 19th century Germany military theorist von Clausewitz, revered both Frederick and Napoleon as exemplary practitioners of warfare while Carlyle’s contribution to this hero-worship was an exhaustive six-volume biography.

In the 20th century, Frederick’s image as a warrior-king was used by Hitler and the Nazis to embed their aggressive nationalism.

In response liberals criticised Frederick’s militarism, his unnecessary and bloody wars, and his forced divisions of other peoples’ territories, most notably during the partition of Poland in 1772.

Yet, in contrast to the German nationalist view, Frederick is judged by many historians to have been an enlightened despot who espoused liberal and humanist values and whose regime prefigured the democratic and secular societies of our own age.

He was also a philosopher-king, a latter-day renaissance man who believed princes were duty-bound to implement the rational teachings of philosophers.

And central to Frederick’s own political philosophy was that the rule of law must apply to the sovereign as well as to citizens.

While he was the king of a pious Protestant country, he did not believe in Christian doctrine.

He nevertheless favoured religious toleration, including of Catholics and gave refuge to the Jesuits when their order was dissolved by Pope Clement XIV in 1773.

Frederick also granted political asylum to Voltaire and other persecuted luminaries of the European Enlightenment. He was less tolerant towards Jews but even they prospered in his Prussia. So, apart from Great Britain, Frederick’s Prussia was regarded as the most liberal society in all of 18th century Europe.

Frederick was a multi-linguist but detested his native language and had little time for such German national icons as the poet Goethe. But nor did he appreciate Shakespeare, preferring instead the classics of French literature and philosophy.

As an active poet, a musician and a patron of the arts, he built the Berlin Opera House and amassed a huge collection of paintings and sculptures. It was during Frederick’s reign that art and high culture became a new, secular religion in Europe.

In recent years interest in Frederick’s colourful private life has come to the fore. He was a camp king, who revelled in homo-erotica, surrounded himself with homosexuals and may even have been a practising homosexual, notwithstanding his arranged marriage to a German princess.

Not surprisingly, Frederick’s life and career has generated a vast literature. His own collected writings fill 30 volumes while his voluminous correspondence fills another 50.

Much of his writing chronicled the prosecution of his military campaigns because, as Winston Churchill later proved, Frederick believed history would judge his actions to be both right and just because he was the one writing it!

In the 21st century, the 300th anniversary of his birth in 2012 saw a further revival of interest in Frederick, especially in Germany where the lessons of past German leadership in Europe are a highly topical subject of discussion.

Tim Blanning’s contribution to this literature is a grand synthesis of research and writing on Frederick that probes each and every aspect his life and reign — military, political, cultural, economic and, above all, personal. The book is long — more than 600 pages of text with maps and illustrations — but is as accessible as it is erudite. Blanning was Professor of Modern History at Cambridge and was for many years associated with University College Cork as an external examiner. His expertise is the history of 18th century Europe and this book is the culmination of a lifetime of scholarship.

The first half is devoted mainly to Frederick’s childhood and early life and to the various military campaigns he undertook after becoming King in 1740.

Frederick’s father — Frederick William — was a brutal parent who, writes Blanning, “never praised his son, never showed him any affection and treated him worse than he did his court buffoons.”

At 18 Frederick ran away with a military friend but was caught and imprisoned while his companion was beheaded. Thereafter Frederick buckled down to his father’s authority but kept his own counsel and nurtured his own identity as an intellectual and aesthete. When he ascended the throne, Frederick rebelled against his father’s austere regime but benefitted greatly from the strong military foundations of his inheritance.

When I worked with Tim in the 1990s, what impressed me most was the careful judgement he brought to bear as an external examiner. That same measured quality shines through in this work as he navigates the myriad of issues associated with Frederick. Blanning is neither a debunker nor a mythologist of Frederick.

After a detailed treatment of his wars and campaigns, Blanning’s verdict on Frederick’s best-known claim to fame, his military success, is that he was an “indifferent general but a brilliant warlord” because of the clarity and persistence with which pursued his goals.

Frederick was in many ways a great humanitarian — one of his first acts as King was to abolish torture — but abominable in his treatment of family members. He had no children and his elder brother August Wilhelm was heir-apparent. A younger brother, Henry, played an important role in Frederick’s military campaigns.

As Blanning notes, Frederick was not violent towards his male siblings (he treated his sisters more kindly) but inclined to humiliate them publicly — driving poor August to an early death, or so it was said. It was “a classic case of a victim of bullying being turned into a bully himself”.

Frederick supported free speech and shrugged off personal criticism but could be imperious towards dissenting journalists. One such victim was an editor in Cologne who published a newspaper supporting Austria against Prussia.

Frederick paid someone to beat him up. But such roughhouse politics was not uncommon at the time. Frederick was popular with his troops because he shared their hardships and was liked by the people because he paid attention to their concerns.

But while Frederick played up his image as a man of the people he was also careful to protect the interests of the Prussian nobles whose sons were the bedrock of his army.

According to Blanning, Frederick was an outstanding but autocratic ruler with micro-management tendencies.

“The compulsive wish to keep secrets and to monopolise decision-making probably had its roots in his childhood experiences. Forced to keep his true self concealed from his fearsome father, he created for himself an iron mask which he took off only among his circle in time.”

One consequence of such personalised rule was that Frederick did not prepare the succession and Frederick William II — August’s son — squandered much of his legacy and reversed many of his liberal reforms.

On the vexed question of Frederick’s homosexuality, Blanning argues that he was homosexual but the jury remains out on whether he had sex with other men. More importantly, his campness was “about a lot more than sex or impudence, it is also about a special kind of milieu involving flamboyant decoration, consumption and self-indulgence.”

Tim Blanning’s book is a suitably rich and engaging testimony to the enduring fascination we have with complexities of Europe’s philosopher-king. ( )

The iconic biography in English it may be, but so much less engaging than his excellent books on Glory and on Music. This took months to read and I was really grateful for the 160 pages of notes as they suddenly ended the tome. I read it all because it was so expensive to purchase. The maps are execrable. You need your own. Not a nice person. Enlightened autocracy is shown to be overrated. ( )

Frederick the Great King of Prussia, by Tim Blanning (read 10 Aug 2016) Even though I read on 15 May 1972 Ludwig Reimers' biograph of Frederick the Great and on 4 June 1987 I read Robert B. Asprey's biography of him, I hve now read this 2016 biography by a Cambridge historian. Blanning spends a lot more time on Frederick's probable homosexuality than did the othe two biographies I read, but he also covers the life and Frederick's exploits in full. Some of the accoun is pretty dry, but the account of the Seven Years War is well done. The book has 105 pages of notes and six pages of a list for "Further Reading" (though neither of the old biographies I have read is suggested as other reading). The book did not make me admratory of Frederick--in fact some of what Frederick thought and did suggested why Hitler admired him, his anti-Semitism, his animus against religion, etc. ( )