I confess that I am a bit biased against this book. What was off-putting was an excessive amount of quotations from Elizabethan sources, including segments of Ivan's life where he was not interacting with English observers (e.g. his death). The sense I get is of an author who has limited specialization in English historical sources (it looks like a lot of the Elizabethan quotes come from an edited volume published in the 19th century), and wrote a book about the famous Russian tyrant relying on those and other translated sources. What results is a mostly confusing "just-the-facts" parade of schemers and religious nut jobs inflicting misery on Ivan, each other, and especially the people of Russia and Central Asia. I think I'd rather read a biography by a specialist who could examine primary sources in Russian. ( )

The life and times of Ivan IV of Russia. A painful childhood within a family of weak genetic stock produces a monster…a very intelligent monster, but a monster just the same. This book is as much about the history of Russia as it is about Ivan and I found this more interesting than Ivan's personal story. Here we learn about the original isolation of the Russ and their attempts to be taken seriously as a nation while Sweden & Denmark & Poland & Lithuania each strive to dominate Northern Europe. Even Elizabeth’s England is drawn into the conflict in an effort to secure the lucrative fur trade with Russia. The last section of the book, describing Ivan’s war with Poland was extremely captivating—from England through Scandinavia and onto Turkey and China, Ivan the Terrible’s last war came close to becoming the first world war. It’s not that the story is riveting, but it comes quite close at times. ( )

No wonder his dynasty died out; that's what happens when you beat your heir to death. ( )

This Russian ruler always freaked me out, probably because of the Eisenstein epic movie. He didn't receive the moniker of 'Terrible' by being a nice next-door neighbour, but I think the author does an excellent job of expanding the overall personality of Ivan. After all, the Russian Empire really started with him, as he started consolidating all the different geographic pieces. He was a true Renaissance prince and ranks up there with Louix XI and Henry VII.

The Russian character comes through strongly also, which is refreshing. Overall, the tome is well-written and a good read when a terrible gale is a-blowin'.


Book Season = Winter ( )

An older but excellent book on the life of Ivan the terrible. Peter the Great and later tsars did terrible things too but Ivan got the label. It is well deserved. The difficulty with Ivan IV is that actual records are sparse. A serious academic history which sticks to the facts is Ivan the Terrible by S. F Platonov (see my review). The main point of contention with Ivan is whether or not he was seriously mentally disturbed or just bad. Histories of him tend to see the pathology but as Platonov points out, he retained his intellectual powers till near to the end of his life. So it is a puzzle.
If you like historical fiction you will probably enjoy this book though it is not a novel. ( )