About this book
Robert K. Massie tells the story of Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia, and his wife Alexandra. Their marriage was a devoted one, but their only son, Alexei, suffered from haemophilia, and the family's desperate efforts to protect him drew them toward the mystic Grigory Rasputin.
Massie follows the family and the empire through the years leading to the First World War, the strains of the war itself, the revolution of 1917 and the imprisonment of the Romanovs, ending with their execution in 1918. He shows how private anxieties and public decisions became tangled together at a moment of crisis, and why a dynasty that had ruled for three centuries proved unable to adapt.
What makes the book stand out is the way it combines intimate family drama with the collapse of an empire. It is a moving and compulsively readable account, and readers who enjoy it should explore Massie's earlier Russian rulers in Catherine the Great and Peter the Great.
Who it’s for
Well suited to readers who love royal history and personal stories; accessible, absorbing and only moderately demanding.
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