The story of the love that ended an empire
In this commanding book, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Robert K. Massie sweeps readers back to the extraordinary world of Imperial Russia to tell the story of the Romanovs’ lives: Nicholas’s political naïveté, Alexandra’s obsession with the corrupt mystic Rasputin, and little Alexis’s brave struggle with hemophilia. Against a lavish backdrop of luxury and intrigue, Massie unfolds a powerful drama of passion and history—the story of a doomed empire and the death-marked royals who watched it crumble.
Introduction - More praise for Nicholas and Alexandra
Chapter 1: 1894: Imperial Russia
Chapter 2: The Tsarevich Nicholas
Chapter 7: Two Revolutionaries
Chapter 8: The Kaiser’s Advice
Chapter 10: The Tsar’s Village
Chapter 13: The Royal Progress
Chapter 14: “The Little One Will Not Die”
Chapter 17: “We Want a Great Russia”
Chapter 18: The Romanov Dynasty
Chapter 19: The Long Summer of 1914
Chapter 20: For the Defense of Holy Russia
Chapter 22: “Poor Fellows, They Are Ready to Give Their Lives for a Smile”
Chapter 23: The Fateful Deception
Chapter 24: The Government Disintegrates
Chapter 25: The Prince and the Peasant
Chapter 26: Last Winter at Tsarskoe Selo
Chapter 27: Revolution: March 1917
Chapter 31: “His Majesty’s Government Does Not Insist”