The Romanovs: 1613-1918
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group; Alfred A. Knopf
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Format: ebook
Number of pages: 744
ISBN-13: 9781101946978
Description: From the Introduction...

In some ways, this book is a study of character and the distorting effect of absolute power on personality. It is partly a family story of love, marriage, adultery and children, but it is not like other such stories—royal families are always extraordinary because power both sweetens and contaminates the traditional familial chemistry: the allure and corruption of power so often trump the loyalty and affection of blood. This is a history of the monarchs, their families and retinues, but it is also a portrait of absolutism in Russia—and whatever else one believes about Russia, its culture, its soul, its essence have always been exceptional, a singular nature which one family aspired to personify. The Romanovs have become the very definition not only of dynasty and magnificence but also of despotism, a parable of the folly and arrogance of absolute power. No other dynasty except the Caesars has such a place in the popular imagination and culture, and both deliver universal lessons about how personal power works, then and now. It is no coincidence that the title “tsar” derives from Caesar just as the Russian for emperor is simply the Latin “imperator.”
Table of contents: label: Other Titles; label: Copyright; label: Dedication; label: Contents; label: List of Illustrations; label: Map
title: The Expansion of Russia, 1613–1917; label: Family Tree
title: The House of Romanov; label: Introduction; label: Acknowledgements and Sources; label: Note; label: Prologue
title: Two Boys in a Time of Troubles; label: Act I
title: The Rise; label: Scene 1
title: The Brideshows; label: Scene 2
title: The Young Monk; label: Scene 3
title: The Musketeers; label: Scene 4
title: The All-Drunken Synod; label: Act II
title: The Apogee; label: Scene 1
title: The Emperor; label: Scene 2
title: The Empresses; label: Scene 3
title: Russian Venus; label: Scene 4
title: The Golden Age; label: Scene 5
title: The Conspiracy; label: Scene 6
title: The Duel; label: ACT III
title: The Decline; label: Scene 1
title: Jupiter; label: Scene 2
title: Liberator; label: Scene 3
title: Colossus; label: Scene 4
title: Master of the Land; label: Scene 5
title: Catastrophe; label: Scene 6
title: Emperor Michael II; label: Scene 7
title: Afterlife; label: Epilogue
title: Red Tsars/White Tsars; label: Bibliography; label: Notes; label: A Note About the Author; label: Illustrations