The Romanovs were the most successful dynasty of modern times, ruling a sixth of
the world's surface for three centuries. 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