The last tsar The abdication of Nicholas II and the fall of the Romanovs

Historian Hasegawa (emeritus, Univ. of California at Santa Barbara; Crime and Punishment in the Russian Revolution) presents his latest work, an update on his 2017 book The February Revolution, Petrograd, 1917. This volume examines Tsar Nicholas II's view of autocracy, how he and his bevy of lackeys refused to create a government that would unite the country during World War I, how he managed to alienate almost all of Russia against his rule, and the many leading personalities who played a role in his abdication during the 1917 revolution. Hasegawa argues that the Russian aristocracy and Tsar Nicholas II were primarily responsible for the end of the 300-year Romanov reign because the tsar was unable to adapt to the monarchical system and to the demands of a changing society. Hasegawa's arguments are based on many new sources and research previously guarded in closed Russian archives that became more accessible after the 1991 dissolution of the former USSR. His interpretations may prompt criticism from academic scholars of this still-controversial story. VERDICT Best for serious Russian scholars. Readers new to the topic may also want to seek out Robert K. Massie's four-book series about the Romanovs.--Dale Farris

The fall of clueless Russian Czar Nicholas II. Although hobbled by an absolute monarchy and slow to industrialize, Russia was getting its act together by the end of the 19th century. Its czars, although often reactionary, took governing seriously. Hasegawa, professor emeritus in history at UC Santa Barbara and author ofRacing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan, emphasizes that Nicholas was an exception. He became czar at age 26, when his father died prematurely, though he had already shown little aptitude but much fascination with the trappings of power, if not the details. Scholars universally deplore his marriage to German princess Alexandra, who was far more strong-willed than her husband and became wildly unpopular. The book delivers a compelling biography of the pair up to early 1917, when Russia's wartime miseries erupted in widespread violence. In meticulous detail, Hasegawa recounts the czar's imprisonment and the bloody end of his dynasty. It's a scholarly tour de force in which the author has absorbed the participants' massive documentation and familiarized himself with a huge cast of characters, most unfamiliar even to history buffs. This should not be anyone's introduction to the Russian Revolution, but readers of Robert K. Massie's classic 1967Nicholas and Alexandra and its follow-up,The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, will appreciate the events revealed by Hasegawa's fine-tooth comb. An extraordinarily detailed account of the last czar's last days. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.