Secret Lives Of The Tsars: Three Centuries Of Autocracy Debauchery, Betrayal, Murder, And Madness From Romanov Russia

Secret Lives Of The Tsars: Three Centuries Of Autocracy Debauchery,Betrayal, Murder, And Madness From Romanov Russia by Michael Farquhar, 349 pages

This book chronicles the lives of the tsars in the Romanov dynasty from Michael through Nicholas II.  It includes chapters on the more well-known tsars such as Peter I (the Great), Catherine II (the great), and the last tsar, Nicholas II, but also the lesser known (at least to me) Anna, Elizabeth, and Paul.  The book’s introduction details how the Romanovs gained power after Ivan IV’s (the terrible) reign ended and several years of political unrest followed before the first Romanov, Michael, was elected tsar.  This was a pretty good book.  It was easy to read, gave an adequate amount of information for people who are looking for an overview of the Romanov history and was pretty interesting.

The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & The Fall Of Imperial Russia

The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & The Fall Of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming, 292 pages

Although not one of my favorite historical periods, I’ve always had a small fascination with the whole “missing princess” story.  I hadn’t read many non-fictional accounts of the Romanov family so I didn’t know a lot of what was happening in Russia during this time.  This book was well written and kept everything pretty simple so I got a much clearer picture of how Nicholas was ignoring and sometimes exacerbating the problems that the poor were facing in Russia, which certainly went a long way towards explaining why the Russian Revolution happened.  Actually both the October and May Revolutions were pretty well explained.  I also felt like I had a better grasp on why World War I actually started and how the various powers became involved.  Before reading this book, if someone had asked me, I would have said “an archduke got shot” but this book actually pretty simply explained the land situation and who was allied with who and why.  I’m not sure that I learned a lot of new information about the family themselves, because I knew more about them going into the book, but there were some interesting tidbits about them, especially the children, as well.  Overall, I’d have to say that I really enjoyed the book and would definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in this time period or Russian history.