The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs

The definitive story behind the self-destruction of the autocratic Romanov dynasty, by the world’s foremost expert

When Tsar Nicholas II fell from power in 1917, Imperial Russia faced a series of overlapping crises, from war to social unrest. Though Nicholas’s life is often described as tragic, it was not fate that doomed the Romanovs—it was poor leadership and a blinkered faith in autocracy.     

Based on a trove of new archival discoveries, The Last Tsar narrates how Nicholas’s resistance to reform doomed the monarchy. Encompassing the captivating personalities of the era—the bumbling Nicholas, his spiteful wife Alexandra, the family’s faith healer Rasputin—it untangles the dramatic struggle by Russia’s aristocratic, military, and legislative elite to reform the monarchy. By rejecting compromise, Nicholas undermined his supporters at crucial moments. His blunders cleared the way for all-out civil war and the eventual rise of the Soviet Union. 

Definitive and engrossing, The Last Tsar uncovers how Nicholas II stumbled into revolution, taking his family, the Romanov dynasty, and the whole Russian Empire down with him.