Prussian and powerful

Frederick the Great: King of Prussia. By Tim Blanning. Allen Lane; 672 pages; £30. To be published in America by Random House in March; $35.

FREDERICK II of Prussia was one of the most singular men ever to sit on a throne—he played music with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, debated with Voltaire and produced a stream of learned treatises of his own. He won a succession of wars, transforming Prussia from a mere “sandbox of the Holy Roman Empire” into a great power. He also prided himself on his enlightened rule at home. At a time when monarchs were regarded as semidivine beings who could cure diseases with the royal touch, he despised religion as a farrago of nonsense, avoided court life, doffed his hat to ordinary Prussians and encouraged inoculation against smallpox.