Bibliograph

The last of the tsars, Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution, Robert Service

Type

Label

The last of the tsars, Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution, Robert Service

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references and index

resource.biographical

contains biographical information

Illustrations

portraitsmapsillustrationsplates

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

The last of the tsars

Nature of contents

bibliography

Responsibility statement

Robert Service

Sub title

Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution

Summary

In March 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, Robert Service, the eminent historian of Russia, examines Nicholas's 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 Service's profound understanding of the period and his forensic examination of hitherto untapped sources, including the Tsar's 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. The Last of the Tsars is a masterful study of a man who was almost entirely out of his depth, perhaps even willfully so. It is also a compelling account of the social, economic and political ferment in Russia in the aftermath of Alexander Kerensky's February Revolution, the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 and the beginnings of Lenin's Soviet republic

Target audience

adult

Classification