Reviews:
-[T]hese are dramatic tales, stories that many more theory-oriented historians probably assume their readers will already know. Anisimov's book now makes acquiring that knowledge easy.
—Biography
-With Five Empresses, the Anglophone world has access to Anisimov's marvelous narrative gifts, particularly given the excellent translation by Kathleen Carol....Anisimov tells a fast-paced, colorful, and nugget-filled story that should be especially popular among undergraduates.
—The Historian
-[A] valuable contribution to a sparsely worked segment of the field....[a]n engaging work to read.
—The Russian Review
-If the lives of Russia's 18th century empresses have been under-scrutinized to this point, compared with their more numerous male antecedents and descendants, then Asimov's book tips the scales back toward something like balance. In Five Empresses, he presents detailed, rich histories of these women's lives that are remarkable for being both readable and rooted in solid research....Russian history is scarcely more interesting that when it delves into the lives of the tsars and tsarinas. And with this book. Anisimov vaults to the front of the pack. One hopes that this will not be the last of his works we see published in English.
—Russian Life
-Brimming with intrigue, scandal, mayhem, and murder, the drama of Russiam court life is unrivaled by any contemporary soap opera....Through these five digestible biographies of Catherine I, Anna Ioannovna, Anna Leopoldovna, Elizabeth, and Catherine the Great, the author shines a revealing spotlight on Russian history, culture, and society.
—Booklist