Frederick the Great: A Historical Profile - Softcover

"Ritter's book is complex, subtle, and scholarly, and deserves to be read two or three times. . . There is no aspect of Frederick's government or wars that Ritter does not analyze with subtlety and usually with conviction."--"New York Review of Books

Gerhard Ritter's biography of Frederick the Great onglnated in a series of lectures, which were published with scarcely any revisions in 1936. In this translation, based on the third edition, published in 1954, Paret has tried to convey the hard and precise style that characterizes the German text, while eliminating some of the numerous adjectives and parallel phrases that a lecturer might have found useful for emphasis but which seem unnecessary on the printed page. With the author's agreement also excluded is the brief introduction and epilogue of the original, since they are addressed specifically to the German reader and to German conditions. Gerhard Ritter died in 1967, shortly after the translation was completed.