About this title: Nicholas & Alexandra is the internationally famous biography from Pulitzer prize-winner Robert Massie. Massie shows conclusively how the personal curse of the young heir's haemophilia, and the decisive influence it brought Rasputin, became fatally linked with the collapse of Imperial Russia. As an engrossing account of one of the century's most dramatic episodes - and an intimate portrait of two people caught at the centre of a maelstrom - Nicholas & Alexandra is unlikely ever to be surpassed. 'The story of the last Tsar has probably never been so powerfully - and so accurately - told' ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: [1st ed. ]
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Atheneum, New York
Date Published: 1967
Description: Good in good dust jacket. Good, In good dust jacket. xvii, 584 p. illus., geneal. tables. maps (on lining papers), ports. 25 cm. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Atheneum, New York
Date Published: 1967
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. xvii, 584 p. illus., geneal. tables. maps (on lining papers), ports. 25 cm. Includes: Illustrations, Maps, Portraits, Genealogical tables. Bibliography: p. 563-568. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Dell Publishing Company
Date Published: 1978
ISBN-13:9780440163589ISBN:0440163587
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. Nice copy. Very clean inside, no marks or tears. Spline has some cracks, front & back covers are in very good condition. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Dell
Date Published: 1974
Description: Very Good in Unknown jacket. Very Good 044006358175 Tight spine, light cover and edge wear, and no markings. Tanning pages. Biography of Russian royalty. Illustrated with photos. Non-fiction. (#2874) read more
"What a turbulant way to end a reign. The story of the last Tsar of Russia is a compelling one, in its grand setting of palaces, luxury, and Revolution. Characters such as the beautiful Tsarina, the sickly and beloved son, Alexis, and the mysterious and mesmerizing monk, Gregory Rasputin, who, it must be said, has the most dramatic death I have ever heard of, fill the pages with their being. This was a real family, and this was a real time and event. And it is truly a story worth reading. I read this as research for a paper I did for an oral presentation in grade eleven on Rasputin. And let us say that I had the whole class's attention (I started with the murder of Rasputin to grab them), and made a perfect mark. How could you not, with a story as this one? It is written historically but also like a great novel. There is a sympathy that you come to feel for the Romanovs that previously was not there... Sometimes you see how they came to do what they did. And then, you do feel their fear when they are gathered up and transported out to the woods to face their deaths... You sympathise with this great family, this fallen family, and still are amazed that it happened, and in the last century, recent, in the world's history."
"Another great book by Massie - he is my favorite popular historian, I think. It's massive, but I couldn't put it down. Massie takes, I believe, what could be called a Great Man approach to history, and if a Great Man isn't around, a Mediocre Man approach. Nicholas was mediocre as a ruler, but as Massie demonstrates, a truly devoted, loving family man. In fact the last Czar was a really nice guy all round and took his duties and responsibilities seriously. He loved his people, which is a good thing in a Czar. But as for the job itself, he failed - he lacked imagination, I suppose, although his was an impossible job. But the entire Russian aristocracy was more interested in vacationing in France than actually running the country, so Nicholas didn't get a lot of support (his relatives thought he was boring, a real grind). But hey, it's tough being the Autocrat of all of Russia. His wife is a tragic figure, and did, perhaps more harm than good, although she too had good-intentions (her marriage to the Nicholas must be one of the true love stories of all time). Massie's account of the rise and fall of Rasputin was riveting and finally, fair, balanced and gave the old fraud credit where credit was due. The vile treatment he and his family endured at the end is very sad to read about. This book secured Massie's reputation back in the 1960s and I can see why."
"I am not a history buff. In fact, history was always one of my least favorite subjects and the thought of reading a history book was always slightly more appealing than eating spinach. But then my mother gave me a copy of Robert Massie's Peter the Great and I devoured that book in five days, as thought it were just another novel. I have since read it again. And when I came across Nicholas and Alexandra, I knew I needed to own it.
As with his later book, this reads like fiction. Massie is able to provide such rich details as too bring turn of the century Russia to life. His prose is rich and moving, far from the dry, dreary tone I expect every other history book must be like. We all know very well the cruel fate the Romanovs met in 1918, yet as I read this book, I wished until the final chapter that the writer would swoop in, deus ex machina style, and save them. But alas, he is bound by historical events that cannot be denied, and so I cried, thanks in no great part to the poignant details he is able to provide in the family's final moments.
This is a beautiful work and I would recommend it to anyone, fans of Russian history or otherwise."
"Massie writes like a novelist, bringing the era of World War I to life in this story of the last tsar of Russia. He tells the story of how Nicholas' love for his wife and her love for their only son, the hemophiliac Alexis, ruined the nation and destroyed the lives of many. Because of his hemophilia, Alexis was kept under careful surveillance at all times to avoid an accident, but it didn't always keep the accidents from happening. When the dirty, obscene, but extraordinarily powerful Gregory Rasputin came along and was able to heal Alexis whenever the boy was hurt, the Tsarina Alexandra was totally in Rasputin's thrall and, thus, so was the Tsar himself.
"Nicholas and Alexandra" is the sad and intriguing history of the last of the Romanov family up to the time of their assassination. Perhaps because he himself has a hemophiliac son, Massie writes with pathos and presents something very real in the pages, not just dry facts of names, dates, and places. This was the book that got me interested in WWI history, and it's still one of my favorites."
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