Having given birth to daughter after daughter after daughter, she becomes desperate and turns to the first of her mystical advisors, Msgr. Philippe, who persuades her, among other things, that she is invisible.And then comes the moment of her greatest triumph with the birth of her son and the heir to the throne of all the Russias, the Tsarevich Alexei.All four volumes are (planned) as follows:1. 'The Funeral Bride' 1884-1894 - published November 20152. 'The Empress of Tears' 1895-1904 - published March 20163. 'The Pride of Eagles' 1905-1914 - to be published by November 20164. 'No Greater Crown' 1914-1918 - to be published by April 2017

    The brutal murder of the Russian Imperial family on the night of July sixteenth to seventeenth, 1918 has long been a defining moment in world history. The Last Days of the Romanovs reveals in exceptional detail how the conspiracy to kill them unfolded. In the vivid style of a TV documentary, Helen Rappaport reveals both the atmosphere inside the family's claustrophobic prison and the political maneuverings of those who wished to save--or destroy--them. With the watching world and European monarchies proving incapable of saving the Romanovs, the narrative brings this tragic story to life in a compellingly new and dramatic way, culminating in a bloody night of horror in a cramped basement room.

    In order to get at the truth, this meticulously researched work covers the lives of both these men, from their youth right up to their ultimate collision. The Man Who Killed Rasputin is a superb retelling of a major historical event and is based on new revelations from the St. Petersburg police files. The book features many previously unpublished photographs, including the recently released Rasputin death pictures.At the time of the murder, Prince Youssoupov owned palaces throughout Russia. Just two years later, he and his wife were reduced to selling their possessions to survive. And wherever he went, he was always pointed out as the man who killed Rasputin.

    In this acclaimed biography, Douglas Smith separates fact from fiction to reveal the real Rasputin in all his comlexity – man of God, voice of peace, loyal subject, adulterer, drunkard. The result is not only a definitive biography of an extraordinary man, it is also a riveting portrait of the twilight of imperial Russia as it lurched toward catastrophe.

    How did one family turn a war-ruined principality into the world’s greatest empire? And how did they lose it all? This is the intimate story of twenty tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition. Simon Sebag Montefiore’s gripping chronicle reveals their secret world of unlimited power and ruthless empire-building, overshadowed by palace conspiracy, family rivalries, sexual decadence and wild extravagance, with a global cast of adventurers, courtesans, revolutionaries and poets, from Ivan the Terrible to Tolstoy and Pushkin, to Bismarck, Lincoln, Queen Victoria and Lenin.

    Russian playwright and historian Radzinsky mines  sources never before available to create a  fascinating portrait of the monarch, and a minute-by-minute account of his terrifying last days.  Updated for the paperback edition.

    The text, which follows Nicholas & Alexandria from their childhood's to the Siberian cellar where their lives ended, is complemented by rare images from the imperial family's private collections (locked away for decades in Soviet archives, & published here for the first time), as well as by contemporary full-color photographs of the places & palaces the Romanovs knew.

    George V, Wilhelm II and Nicholas II, known in the family as Georgie, Willy and Nicky, were cousins. Between them they ruled over half the world. They had been friends since childhood. But by July 1914 the Trade Union of Kings was falling apart. Each was blaming the other for the impending disaster of the First World War. 'Have I gone mad?' Nicky asked his wife Alix in St Petersburg, showing her another telegram from Willy. 'What on earth does William mean pretending that it still depends on me whether war is averted or not!' Behind the friendliness of family gatherings lurked family quarrels, which were often played out in public. Drawing widely on previously unpublished documents, this is the extraordinary story of their overlapping lives, conducted in palaces of unimaginable opulence, surrounded by flattery and political intrigue. And through it runs the question: to what extent were the King, the Kaiser and the Tsar responsible for the outbreak of the war, and, as it turned out, for the end of autocratic monarchy?

    Petersburg to the back streets of Moscow. Through intrigues, assassination, war and revolution, to the tragedy of her own horrific murder, she remained true to her calling to bring beauty into the world. Based on the true story of 'the most beautiful princess in Europe', this novel is written in tribute to a remarkable and courageous woman.

     The story of the Romanovs begins in Moscow in 1613, and ends in Ekaterinburg in 1918, at the beginning of a revolution, where Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their five children were slaughtered by a Soviet death squad. In this book, you will learn about the lives and reigns of each Romanov emperor and empress. Read about Peter the Great, who kept company with peasants and pie sellers but had his own son tortured to death; Catherine the Great, who finally convinced Europe that there was more to be found in the far north than just snow and barbarians; Alexander I, the gallant emperor who famously defeated Napoleon in 1812; Alexander II, who freed the serfs and survived five assassination attempts before perishing in the sixth; and Nicholas II, who ended the Romanov dynasty in 1917 when he abdicated the throne on behalf of himself and his son, the hemophiliac Alexei, who would never be emperor but is now considered a saint. The Romanov Dynasty Michael I (1613-1645) Alexei I (1645-1676) Fyodor III (1676-1682) Sofia Alekseyevna, regent for co-tsars Ivan V and Peter I (1682-1689) Ivan V (1682-1696) Peter the Great (1682-1725) Catherine I (1725-1727) Peter II (1727-1730) Anna I (1730-1740) Anna, Duchess of Courland, regent for Ivan VI (October 1740-December 1741) Elizaveta I (1741-1761) Peter III (January 1762-July 1762) Catherine the Great (1762-1796) Paul I (1796-1801) Alexander I (1801-1825) Nicholas I (1825-1855) Alexander II (1855-1881) Alexander III (1881-1894) Nicholas II (1894-1917)

    A barbarous, volatile feudal tsar with a taste for torture; a progressive and enlightened reformer of government and science; a statesman of vision and colossal significance: Peter the Great embodied the greatest strengths and weaknesses of Russia while being at the very forefront of her development.Robert K. Massie delves deep into the life of this captivating historical figure, chronicling the pivotal events that shaped a boy into a legend - including his 'incognito' travels in Europe, his unquenchable curiosity about Western ways, his obsession with the sea and establishment of the stupendous Russian navy, his creation of an unbeatable army, and his relationships with those he loved most: Catherine, his loving mistress, wife, and successor; and Menshikov, the charming, unscrupulous prince who rose to power through Peter's friendship. Impetuous and stubborn, generous and cruel, a man of enormous energy and complexity, Peter the Great is brought fully to life.

    16-page, full-color insert, 2 photos, maps & family trees.

    Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war that set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world.Miranda Carter uses the cousins' correspondence and a host of historical sources to tell the tragicomic story of a tiny, glittering, solipsistic world that was often preposterously out of kilter with its times, struggling to stay in command of politics and world events as history overtook it. George, Nicholas and Wilhelm is a brilliant and sometimes darkly hilarious portrait of these men--damaged, egotistical Wilhelm; quiet, stubborn Nicholas; and anxious, dutiful George--and their lives, foibles and obsessions, from tantrums to uniforms to stamp collecting. It is also alive with fresh, subtle portraits of other familiar figures: Queen Victoria--grandmother to two of them, grandmother-in-law to the third--whose conservatism and bullying obsession with family left a dangerous legacy; and Edward VII, the playboy "arch-vulgarian" who turned out to have a remarkable gift for international relations and the theatrics of mass politics. At the same time, Carter weaves through their stories a riveting account of the events that led to World War I, showing how the personal and the political interacted, sometimes to devastating effect.For all three men the war would be a disaster that destroyed forever the illusion of their close family relationships, with any sense of peace and harmony shattered in a final coda of murder, betrayal and abdication.

     The political theories of Lenin have long outlived him, and have even gone on to outlive the Marxist state he help to found; the Soviet Union. The name Lenin still reverberates around the world, and yet “Lenin” is not even his real name. He was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the name Lenin was just the word he used to attach to his ideology, Lenin was just the brand that he developed as he attempted to make good on his promise to export Leninism all over the world. Inside you will read about... ✓ The Birth of Revolution ✓ Lenin’s Honeymoon in Exile ✓ Lenin’s Blank Check ✓ Dealing with Monarchist Filth ✓ Saving Face ✓ Voice of a Nation ✓ Russia Holds its Breath And much more! The man that came to be known as Vladimir Lenin almost single-handedly sparked communist revolution in Russia and he very nearly brought his brand of Marxism to the rest of the world. What drove him to do this? Where did he derive such an immense desire for societal change? This book serves to examine the landscape that brought such a pivotal figure to such prominence, examining all of the catalysts, from personal, to national, that led the man known simply as “Lenin” down his inexorable path of revolution.

    During that time the country underwent a massive transformation, taking it from days of grandeur under the tsars to the chaos of revolution and the beginnings of the Soviet Union.At the center of all this tumult were four women of the Romanov dynasty. Marie Alexandrovna and Olga Constantinovna were born into the family, Russian Grand Duchesses at birth. Marie Feodorovna and Marie Pavlovna married into the dynasty, the former born a Princess of Denmark, the latter a Duchess of the German duchy of Mecklendburg-Schwerin.In From Splendor to Revolution, we watch these pampered aristocratic women fight for their lives as the cataclysm of war engulfs them. In a matter of a few short years, they fell from the pinnacle of wealth and power to the depths of danger, poverty, and exile. It is an unforgettable epic story.