Focusing on key events and episodes, this book shows the ties of blood and commerce that have bound the different lands that lie today in Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Western Russia, Belarus, and Eastern Germany. This story encompasses the foundation, rise and fall of some of Europe's greatest dynasties and cities, including St. Petersberg, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Warsaw and Berlin. From the growth of monarchical power and the rise of autocracy, it then looks at the period of the Enlightenment, in particular at the achievements of Frederick II of Prussia and Catherine II. It considers the problems facing Poland’s last king and the events that ended with the country’s collapse. And it shows how new Enlightenment thinking influenced Denmark and Sweden, and rocked the monarchies. It shows the threat of Napoloeon's France to the Baltic and the impact of both  World War I and the Russian Revolution, which led to the re-shaping and establishing of states.