The Last of the Tsars: Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution

About this book

In February 1917 Nicholas II the last Tsar of All the Russias abdicated and the dynasty that had ruled an empire for three hundred years was forced from power by revolution. Now on the hundredth anniversary of that revolution the eminent historian of Russia Robert Service examines Nicholass reign in the year before his abdication and the months between that momentous date and his death with his family in Ekaterinburg in July 1918. The story has been told many times but Services profound understanding of the period and his forensic examination of hitherto untapped sources including the Tsars diaries and recorded conversations shed remarkable new light on his reign also revealing the kind of ruler Nicholas believed himself to have been contrary to the disastrous reality. Last of the Tsars is a masterful study of a man who was almost entirely out of his depth perhaps even wilfully so. It is also a compelling account of the social economic and political foment in Russia in the aftermath of Alexander Kerenskys February Revolution the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 and the beginnings of Lenins Soviet republic