How Catherine the Great Ruled Russia

She was pen pals with Voltaire , a hard-working single mother who always kept a lover — 12 of them over the years. She rewrote Russia’s laws, expanded its borders and powers, made America’s John Paul Jones briefly an admiral in her navy and became Europe’s greatest art collector. A gown in the Kremlin Armory testifies to her amazing waist — whisper-thin when she was young.