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

"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 ... archival discoveries, [this book] 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"