Culture | White nights, dark history
The bloody founding of St Petersburg
In furthering his dream of a Russian Versailles, Peter the Great had no regard for human life
St Petersburg: Three Centuries of Murderous Desire. By Jonathan Miles. Random House; 488 pages; £25. To be published in America by Pegasus in March 2018.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “White nights, dark history”
From the July 29th 2017 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
Pep Guardiola, football’s greatest coach, is in a bind
A serial winner is learning how to lose
The Economist’s word of the year for 2024
The Greeks knew how to talk about politics and power
What do feta, cucumbers and cottage cheese have in common?
Social media and the internet are changing how people cook and relate to food
Germany’s former chancellor sets out to restore her reputation
But her new memoir is unlikely to change her critics’ minds
The best books of 2024, as chosen by The Economist
Readers will never think the same way again about games, horses and spies
What to read to understand Elon Musk
The world’s richest man was shaped by science fiction