Full name: Nicholas II: Twilight of the Empire

Author: Dominic Lieven Year: 1993 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Biographies, History Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780312143794 0312143796

What is there new to say about Russia's last monarch? Almost everything. Previous biographies have told of the shy family man, the father of the hemophiliac heir, the victim of the infamous murder at Ekaterinburg in 1918. This book provides new insights into those parts of the story, but it looks above all at Nicholas as political leader and emperor, as it portrays the Old Regime's collapse and the origins of Bolshevik Russia in a way that will surprise readers. Nicholas II was not stupid. Nor was he nearly as weak as is commonly thought. The dilemmas of ruling Russia were vast and contradictory, and it was an illusion to think that simply by agreeing to become a constitutional monarch Nicholas could have preserved his dynasty and empire. Drawing many eerie parallels to events unfolding in Russia today, Lieven shows that social and technological change had far outstripped the existing political and executive structures. The inability of the Tsar and his government to recognize these growing anachronisms and to devise new systems constructively helped lead to the devastating chaos out of which the new order arose. Drawing on his fifteen-year study of Imperial Russia and using archival material and other sources all over the world, Dominic Lieven shows that the downfall of both the Imperial and Soviet Regimes fit into a pattern of ongoing Russian history, one that bears close scrutiny if we are to understand the turmoil of the post-Cold War period. Similar books: A Lifelong Passion by Sergei Mironenko Tsar by Peter Kurth Michael and Natasha by Donald Crawford Alexander II by Edvard Radzinsky The Last Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky From Splendor to Revolution by Julia P. Gelardi The Flight of the Romanovs by John Curtis Perry The Romanovs by Robert K. Massie Alexandra by Carolly Erickson Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie Nicholas I by W. Bruce Lincoln The Romanov Sisters by Helen Rappaport The Rasputin File by Edvard Radzinsky Peter the Great by Robert K. Massie The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore The Boys In The Boat by Daniel James Brown Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard First Light by Geoffrey Wellum The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir