What is the author's style in Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie?

Massie seems wholly dedicated to interpreting for a modern audience a world and culture utterly foreign to its experience. He opens by evoking Old Muscovy, a society formed throughout the social structure by the Russian Orthodox Church, itself a daughter of Byzantium, and most distinct in its governance and practices from Catholicism and Protestantism. Throughout the book, Peter fights to break the church's lethargy and make it contribute to Russia's progress. Throughout the book Massie also takes pains to show that the barbaric aspects of Russian society and Peter's character, are not that different from his contemporaries.