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The first modern English edition of diverse Enlightenment-era writings by Prussian monarch Frederick the Great Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786), best known as Frederick the Great, was a prolific writer of philosophical discourses, poems, epics, satires, and more, while maintaining extensive correspondence with prominent intellectuals, Voltaire among them. This edition of selected writings, the first to make a wide range of Frederick’s most important ideas available to a modern English readership, moves beyond traditional attempts to see his work only in light of his political aims. In these pages, we can finally appreciate Frederick’s influential contributions to the European Enlightenment—and his unusual role as a monarch who was also a published author. In addition to Frederick’s major opus, the Anti-Machiavel, the works presented here include essays, prefaces, reviews, and dialogues. The subjects discussed run the gamut from ethics to religion to political theory. Accompanied by critical annotations, the texts show that we can understand Frederick’s views of kingship and the state only if we engage with a broad spectrum of his thought, including his attitudes toward morality and self-love. By contextualizing his arguments and impact on Enlightenment beliefs, this volume considers how we can reconcile Frederick’s innovative public musings with his absolutist rule. Avi Lifschitz provides a robust and detailed introduction that discusses Frederick’s life and work against the backdrop of eighteenth-century history and politics. With its unparalleled scope and cross-disciplinary appeal, Frederick the Great’s Philosophical Writings firmly establishes one monarch’s multifaceted relevance for generations of readers and scholars to come.

The definitive biography of the legendary autocrat whose enlightened rule transformed the map of Europe and changed the course of history Few figures loom as large in European history as Frederick the Great. When he inherited the Prussian crown in 1740, he ruled over a kingdom of scattered territories, a minor Germanic backwater. By the end of his reign, the much larger and consolidated Prussia ranked among the continent’s great powers. In this magisterial biography, award-winning historian Tim Blanning gives us an intimate, in-depth portrait of a king who dominated the political, military, and cultural life of Europe half a century before Napoleon. A brilliant, ambitious, sometimes ruthless monarch, Frederick was a man of immense contradictions. This consummate conqueror was also an ardent patron of the arts who attracted painters, architects, musicians, playwrights, and intellectuals to his court. Like his fellow autocrat Catherine the Great of Russia, Frederick was captivated by the ideals of the Enlightenment—for many years he kept up lively correspondence with Voltaire and other leading thinkers of the age. Yet, like Catherine, Frederick drew the line when it came to implementing Enlightenment principles that might curtail his royal authority. Frederick’s terrifying father instilled in him a stern military discipline that would make the future king one of the most fearsome battlefield commanders of his day, while deriding as effeminate his son’s passion for modern ideas and fine art. Frederick, driven to surpass his father’s legacy, challenged the dominant German-speaking powers, including Saxony, Bavaria, and the Habsburg Monarchy. It was an audacious foreign policy gambit, one at which Frederick, against the expectations of his rivals, succeeded. In examining Frederick’s private life, Blanning also carefully considers the long-debated question of Frederick’s sexuality, finding evidence that Frederick lavished gifts on his male friends and maintained homosexual relationships throughout his life, while limiting contact with his estranged, unloved queen to visits that were few and far between. The story of one man’s life and the complete political and cultural transformation of a nation, Tim Blanning’s sweeping biography takes readers inside the mind of the monarch, giving us a fresh understanding of Frederick the Great’s remarkable reign. Praise for Frederick the Great “Writing Frederick’s biography . . . requires a diverse set of skills: expertise in eighteenth-century diplomatic and military history, including the intricacies of the Holy Roman Empire; a familiarity with the music, architecture and intellectual traditions of Northern Europe; and, not least, a profound sense of human psychology, the better to grasp the makeup of this complex and tormented man. Fortunately, Tim Blanning . . . has all of these skills in abundance.”—The Wall Street Journal “At once scholarly and highly readable . . . [Blanning] has given us a superb portrait of an enlightened despot, equally at home on the battlefield and in the opera house, both utterly ruthless and culturally refined.”—Commentary “Blanning, in clear thinking and prose, investigates all aspects of Frederick’s personality and reign. . . . The last word on this significant king, for years to come.”—Booklist (starred review) “Masterly . . . Blanning brilliantly brings to life one of the most complex characters of modern European history.”—The Telegraph (five stars) “A supremely nuanced account . . . This biography finds [Blanning] at the height of his powers.”—Literary Review

A look at the life of Frederick the Great reveals the often misunderstood king as not only a feared conqueror, but also a patron of the arts and a progressive lawmaker who helped make Berlin one of Europe's great capital cities.

"David Fraser, himself a noted general and author of a bestselling biography of Erwin Rommel, places Frederick's life as a soldier at the center of this immaculately researched book, allowing us to understand Frederick's strengths and weaknesses in the field more completely than in any previous biography. Fraser not only brings to these pages the authentic smell of battle, but also offers a sweeping account of strategy and maneuver, of psychology, morale and the impact of victory and defeat on the victors and vanquished. He also knows how to view military action in the context of eighteenth-century European diplomacy and the ever-shifting political forces that would re-shape the map of Europe and touch off the American Revolution."--BOOK JACKET.

This book by renowned Professor of German History, Chester Verne Easum, which was first published in 1942, is devoted to Prince Henry, the younger brother of Prussia’s Frederick the Great. Frederick Henry Louis (1726-1802), commonly known as Henry (Heinrich) also served as a general and statesman, leading Prussian armies in the Silesian Wars and the Seven Years’ War, in which he did not lose a single battle. “The man principally responsible for the achievements of Frederick II of Prussia was Frederick himself. No one else earned for him the title of “Frederick the Great,” Friedrich der Einzige, or “Old Fritz.” Yet he owed much of his success to the work of his predecessors, particularly the Great Elector and Frederick William I, and much to the help his brother Henry gave him. As the rather obscure figure of the younger brother emerges from the shadow of the throne only as the light of investigation is thrown upon it, so Frederick himself takes on a new and in some ways more attractive appearance as his character is more fully revealed by the study of his relationship with Henry. Far from being discredited, he gains more than he loses as a result of this renewed scrutiny. So does Henry.”