Rating: 
Summary: The Last Tsar
Review: A very interesting look into the fading dynasty of the Romanovs. "The Last Tsar" brings the incompetent rule of Nicholas II to light and the eccentric exploits of his wife and family and their eventual imprisonment and execution. At times the text drags on a bit, but over all I would recommend this book to any interested in the Romanovs and the fall of Imperial Russia.
Rating:
Summary: The Last Tsar
Review: A very interesting look into the fading dynasty of the Romanovs. "The Last Tsar" brings the incompetent rule of Nicholas II to light and the eccentric exploits of his wife and family and their eventual imprisonment and execution. At times the text drags on a bit, but over all I would recommend this book to any interested in the Romanovs and the fall of Imperial Russia.
Rating: 
Summary: Good read but not great!
Review: Alas, I wanted so much to become obsessed with this book, since I am obsessed with the whole Romanov legacy. However, Radvinsky's style left me frustrated. He throws in his personal opinions throughout, he dwells too much on details instead of sweeping us along on this horrendous tragedy in which the Tsar, the Empress and the five children were butchered. Paul Massie's extraordinary, Nicholas and Alexandra, is still the greatest book on this subject ever written. I'm re-reading it now for probably the upteenth time and never fail to be hypnotized by the wonderful flow, details and descriptions created by Massie. The Last Tsar is still a must-read. but it can't galvanize the reader like Massie did in his towering achievement.
Rating: 
Summary: A Fascinating Look at a Dark Deed and Its Aftermath
Review: Although I've studied Russian history, I have never been that fascinated by Nicholas II. However, I got this book as a gift and found it quite interesting.What makes this book special is not so much Radzinsky's account of Nicholas' last days but his access to Communist archives that let him reconstruct how and why the Bolshevik leadership decided on killing Nicholas as they did. (Apparently this was done to thwart Trotsky, who wanted a public trial of Nicholas with himself as prosecutor.) Also fascinating is Radzinsky's account of the subsequent careers of Nicholas' murderers, how they became minor league Communist celebrities, telling Komsomol (youth group) assemblies how they had shot the Tsar. This went on until Stalin decided they had become drunken embarassments and kept them out of the public eye. So I would say if you want a book that looks at the last days of Nicholas from a broader perspective, this is the book to get.
Rating:
Summary: An Intimate Portrait of Nicholas and Alexandra
Review: As readable and compelling as a novel, we learn the intimate details of the end of the Tsar and Tsaritsa's lives primarily through primary sources such as their diaries, original telegrams, and eyewitness accounts (cross-verified with physical evidence). As the book progresses, we can see how a combination of factors (including Nicholas' own non-confrontational personality, paranoia and over-protectiveness of the secret police, and Nicholas and Alexandra's faith in Rasputin) caused Nicholas to miss the signs that the absolutist monarchy had to come to an end. As is to be expected from a tale based on personal writings, the story is sympathetic to the family and portrays the barbarity of the execution in the most compelling manner. The focus of this book is very narrow, however. While we get a detailed description of the thoughts and feelings of the Romanovs', we see almost nothing of the larger picture of what was going on in the rest of Russia and the world. Information is notably lacking on the progress of World War I and the Bolshevik revolution, except as the Romanovs encountered them. The narrow focus is both a strength and weakness of the book. It is a weakness in that the reader would need some supplementary reading in order to understand what was going on in Russia overall at the time, but it is a strength in that the reader is seeing the world from the limited viewpoint of the Tsar and his family, and you get a feel for just how sheltered they were and how incomprehensible world events and their own fate must have seemed to them.
Rating:
Summary: Childlike Faith....
Review: For me, the most attention-getting line in this whole book was the one that goes, " Childlike faith is an enchanting quality in an ordinary person and a fatal quality in a ruler."
Indeed, Nicholas II was childishly naive as a ruler, and that was one of the main factors of his downfall. Edvard Radzinsky provides us with a fast-paced read that gives fresh details about the Romanovs' execution.
Noteworthy is the fact that the French, Bolshevik, and Islamic Revolutions all took place for the same reasons, and the leaders ousted by those revolutions ended up dead with a year after being ousted from power. The establishments that were ousted had all of the classic symptoms of being the kind of governments that could easily be removed from power. These are:
1) Too much isolation
2) Being too ill-informed about the problems of their country (which results from too much isolation)
3) Corruption (either their own or that of too many of their officials)
4) Too much money being spent on materialistic items than on their own people, who more than obviously could use such help
5) Being too arrogant to listen to the needs of their people
6) Having a swift, and brutal way of putting down any dissent that reveals apathy for the concerns of their people
7)Dragging (or almost dragging) their impoverished, long-suffering, fed-up citizenry into one unnecessary war too many when internal problems more than obviously need to take precedence
8) Assuming that no matter what they do, the people will always be for their regime
The last of those is probably the most dangerous. Nicholas' weak character and his wife's desperation to keep their hemophiliac son alive were all that were needed to ensure the downfall of the regime.
A few of the aforementioned signs of an unstable regime may appear occassionally. But when they appear too frequently, there is cause for alarm.
I have appreciated the role of former First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the publication of this book because she knew a thing or two about political assassinations. Her role in the publication of this book somehow increases its value.
Radzinsky ends this story by wondering if it is really finished. But he has given students of history enough food for thought for the time being.
Rating:
Summary: Russian's view
Review: I am Russian and my family background is not peasant at all, so I have been always interested in Romanov's history and sympathized with Tsar before I had red the book. The book has only strengthened the feelings of sympathy and sorrow I feel for the last Russian Tsar. The reviews I have red above are obviously written by Western readers, who have studied the Russian history but don't possess the Russian mentality, so doesn't see the role of personalities in Russian politics, the place of religion the same way Russians do. Perhaps, because of that, in my opinion, they are missing the main point. It is not a political pamphlet or historical textbook. It is an account of one family's life. In the book by Radzinsky Tsar is shown as a person - a boy, a young men in love, a father, a husband, a prisoner, and only lastly - a ruler & politician. When Radzinsky looks at the Romanovs he looks at them as a family - that's my understanding. So in brief I would describe this book as "A story of a family". Probably as a Russian (and I hope not Soviet) I can feel some things about the book as an insider and will try to express it. It is very important to understand how religious were both Nicolay and Alexandra and how it all fits in the scheme of his somewhat fatalistic approach to his rule, to Rasputin, to war and revolutions. I can see how shy, naïve and kind young men has to take over a rule in one-sixth of the Globe and it is no easy task, never has been. Radzinsky shows clearly that Nicolas was kept ill-informed and hence some of the worst mistakes he made in politics. He was always torn between his Father's will to keep country under authoritarian rule of Tsars and desire to improve the life of his people, between desire to make his rule entirely peaceful and having to start war in Japan, between his Mother and his wife, between Vitte and Stolipin. From Radzinsky's account many events which we knew from Soviet text books look entirely different. Khodynka, after which Tsar went to dance at French embassador's party and didn't punish Moscow Governer Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, Bloody Sunday, Revolution of 1905 - it all seems like huge misfortunes of thorn, indecisive, and yet kind, smart and decent Nicolas. And then after 1905 we see how he changes, "getting used to blood and becoming more rigid in his politics". The almost military regimen with field courts and "Stolipin's ties". But it all seems understandable if one imagines his family threatened. Again, it is if the reader is willing to see Nicolay - the father, not just a Tsar. Even the understanding of all the dreadful mistakes Nicolay probably had made as a ruler doesn't diminish the anger against the murderers of his family, the sadness of the loss of such a colorful and charming part of Russian history and culture. From my family accounts - Russian people - either peasants or not - never lived worse then when ruled by Commies and during Perestroika. Ultimately, since Alexander II, Russia was heading towards the Constitutional monarchy and would get there under Nicolas if different political forces - both leftwing and rightwing wouldn't provoke the catastrophe which has happened - the Revolution, the Red Terror and the murder of Tsar's family. I strongly recommend the book for those readers who look for memoir and biography type pf reading on Russian history and doubt that those scholars who look for dry facts will enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Great Analysis
Review: Radzisky's "The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II" was a fine written book. Radzinsky writes this book as if he were a detective himself. The most compelling and moving segments of the book are his clear explanations and emphasis on the events that took place after the murders in Ekaterinburg. Although Radzinsky shines in this later portion of the book, it seems to me that the previous portions were somewhat flawed. I did not approve of the way Radzinsky made accusations, such as the one regarding a love affair between Anna Vyrobova and Nicholas, without showing any hard evidence. Unfortunately, I felt as if most of his book disproved many of his own theories, such as those of the affairs. One can clearly see that this book was written by a native Russian. And in this Radzinsky probably shined the most. He had many resources available that many western authors did not. Hence, Radzinsky was able to clearly put most of the pieces in place. Perhaps one of the most creative aspects of his book was the way information was often displayed. It was not only his own writings. He often had a number of people tell the same story from their own perspective. Unfortunately, this often led to questions as to "who really killed the tsar?" But on the other hand, one is able to draw their own conclusions. Radzinsky brilliantly analyzed everything following the execution of the former Tsar and his family. The information is very detailed; so much that one can picture the exact atrocities that were committed, which of course are very unsettling. This book was written during and after the fall of the Soviet Union. I believe Radzinsky is one of the first to have truly depicted the most complete analysis of the Tsar's murder, which remained mostly secret until the fall of the Soviet Union. Even though one may not necessarily approve of things said, or necessarily like every aspect of the book, it is a must read for any Romanov or Nicholas II aficionado.
Rating:
Summary: Russian's view
Review: The Last Tsar is the epitome of what a great detective story should be. Radzinsky goes into the lives of the most famous family in Russian history and gives an account of their aristocratic lives and their tragic fall as prisoners under Communist Russia. Quite possibly the greatest book written on the lives of the Romanovs second to only Nicholas and Alexandra.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book I've ever read on them
Review: This is a great book which I would recommend for anyone interested in the Romanovs.
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