Table of Contents
Principal Family Trees (Modern Era) 7
Introduction 11
Acknowledgements 21
Part 1 Beginnings
1 The Rise and Fall of the Hanseatic League 24
2 Poland's Rise to Power 46
Part 2 From The Middle Ages
3 Denmark's First Oldenburg Kings 58
4 Sweden's Vasa Dynasty 77
5 The Vasa Kings of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 100
6 The Last Years of Sweden's Baltic Empire 110
Part 3 Absolutism and Autocracy
7 Denmark's First Absolute Rulers 124
8 The Early Romanovs to the Founding of St Petersburg 136
9 Karl XII of Sweden: Triumph to Disaster 166
10 Russia's Years of Transition 184
Part 4 Enlightenment
11 The Early Hohenzollerns to Frederick the Great 200
12 Catherine the Great: German Princess to Empress of Russia 224
13 Poland's Last Years of Decline 250
14 Denmark: Success, Scandal and Survival 269
15 Sweden: A Century of Revolution 290
Part 5 Modernity, Change and Revolution
16 The Nineteenth-century Romanov Rulers 308
17 Prussia's Path to Empire 339
18 Maria Feodorovna: Russia's Danish Empress 358
Postscript: Into a New Era 388
Timeline 408
Notes 422
Bibliography 429
Index 437