An Unofficial 'The Rest Is History' Reading List

Peter the Great: His Life and World

Author: Robert K. Massie

Referenced in 4 episodes

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Episodes Referencing This Book

May 18, 2025

Context:

Explicitly mentioned as 'Robert K. Mass's book on Peter the Great' when describing Charles XII's appearance after the Kalabaluk incident - 'There's a lovely description of this in Robert K. Mass's book on Peter the Great. He says, Charles was bleeding from nose, cheek, ear and hand...'

May 11, 2025

Context:

Referenced as 'Peter's great biographer' who wrote about Peter the Great, quoted saying that the Battle of Narva was 'the first step towards his doom'

May 07, 2025

Context:

Referenced as 'Peter's biographer' and 'the Robert K. Massey book' multiple times throughout the episode, including a quote describing women at Lefort's house and another about Peter ordering his comrades to bite off muscle from a cadaver during an anatomy lesson

May 04, 2025

Context:

Dominic references this book as a source for the episode, stating 'There's a wonderful book about Peter the Great by Robert K. Massey, and I've had to restrain myself from just quoting enormous chunks.' He then quotes from it multiple times, including descriptions of the violence during the Streltsy uprising. The author's name appears as 'Massey' in the transcript but this is likely Robert K. Massie, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian.