"'This victory', exulted Peter the Great, 'has laid the final stone in the foundations of St. Petersburg!' The Battle of Poltava, 1709, marked the birth of the Tsar's vast Russian Empire. In 1700, the Tsar had allied with Denmark, Saxony and Poland, seeking to break the Swedish stranglehold on power in the North and to open up Russia's trade routes to the West."

"The Battle that Shook Europe is the gripping account of three violent, frantic days of fighting. It recreates in dramatic detail the lives of those who fought, those who followed and those who died on the long road, but its focus is on the battle itself, gruesome and terrifying as it was. For the extraordinary intimacy of its description, it is internationally acclaimed as one of the great classics of military history. But Peter Englund's narrative tells a more general story of war at the time. Amidst immense suffering and slaughter, he tells of how an army survived, how it was managed, who joined the ranks and why. He tells of preparations and strategy, of supply lines and politics.

And in the wealth of detail in this immensely readable book lies the greater history of the 17th and 18th centuries."--Jacket.