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Rating: 
Summary: Read It!
Review: A genuinely great book. Lincoln certainly could write, and make
all those old Russians seem really interesting. As Lincoln's
former students (including me) know, his lectures were tediously
boring, so that makes the books all the more remarkable.
Rating:
Summary: Read It!
Review: A genuinely great book. Lincoln certainly could write, and make
all those old Russians seem really interesting. As Lincoln's
former students (including me) know, his lectures were tediously
boring, so that makes the books all the more remarkable.
Rating:
Summary: Awe-inspiring
Review: Lincoln made a really tremendous accomplishment. He examined 300 year history of Romanov Dynasty in his peculiar way. Descriptions of military campaigns and court intrigues were very nice. But the most attractive part was one about Russian literature. He explained novels of great Russian writers and their relationships with Romanov Dynasty in such details that I could not help reading some of the novels. When Peter the Great moved to St. Petersburg and forcefully imported Western European culture and europeanized his subject noblemen, a deep cleavage was made between aristocrats and peasant masses. That cleavage eventually led to the Revolution in 1917 under the weak personality of Nicholas II. Lincoln excelled other historians in that he cast a new light upon Rasputin. In the fact that Rasputin recommended candidates for cabinet ministers to Aleksandra and she pressed her choices upon Nicholas, we should not forget the fact that Russian religious peasants prayed to Maria and Maria pressed the peasants' wishes to Jesus Christ or so did they believe. It seems to me that the whole Rasputin affair was politically arranged by extreme reactionaries with Nicholas' approval, though they miscalculated very much. This tragedy seems to have derived from the fact that the Tsar and aristocrats suspected each other. Lincoln provided many circumstantial evidences about this and just let readers judge it. It would be very interesting to imagine what would have happened in Russia if Russian military machine had worked better and the Revolution had not happened. Protopopov must have become dead Rasputin's spokesman and a surge of religion would have dominated Russia and Balkan slavic countries.
Rating:
Summary: The best there is....
Review: Mr. Lincolm, unlike Robert Massie who wrote "Peter the Great," left me with the clear impression that he understood the source material he had at hand, and was able to verify through corroboration every thing he said. Some of the more incredible stories, or speculative rumors are left out. This does not make his work any less enjoyable, but it does lend Mr. Lincoln's work a feeling of solid thoroughness in its research--something that is lacking in Massie's book. If a story was left out, I felt quite confident that Mr. Lincoln knew of the story, but could not corroborate it to his satisfaction. This book is very thorough and incredible in its vast sweep. But it is broken apart into major periods. Each period is further broken down into topics, such as political history, economic history, social history, and so on. This format makes the book quite useful as a reference as well as enjoyable to read. This is the best book on the story of the Romanov family in the English language to date. And I can see this book firmly establishing itself as a timeless classic, alongside Shelby Foote's "Civil War," or Gibbons, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."
Rating:
Summary: Remarkable
Review: This book is absolutely astounding for it's breath taking, and most unusual layout and scope. Lincoln has managed,apart from a somewhat strange dislike for Catherine II to put forth an honest and forthright account of the lives of the Romanov autocrats. This book is truly to be applauded.
Rating:
Summary: "Sweeping in scale and minute in detail no book is better."
Review: W. Bruce Lincoln does the best job I've seen so far of covering the ENTIRE Romanov history and that of her mother Russia. From rise to fall no writer could have imagined a greater plot. It was once said "to understand the present you must look to the past". To understand modern day Russia I suggest you look to this book.
Rating: 
Summary: A Very Readable Account of Imperial Russia's Rulers
Review: W. Bruce Lincoln's history of the 300 years of Romanov rule in Russia (1613-1917) is easily his most readable account of Russian history. While Professor Lincoln's research is meticulous as ever, in this volume he has to cover far more ground than in his other more focused histories and thus he avoids some of the digressions that he normally might allow himself. The result is a superb one-volume history of the Tsars and Tsarinas who determined Russia's development from a minor principality into the largest empire on earth. The Romanovs consists of four parts: Muscovite beginnings (1613-1689), the Rise of an Empire (1689-1796), Empire Triumphant (1796-1894) and the Last Emperor (1894-1917). The first three parts each consist of several chapters, with the first covering biographical details of the Tsars and Tsarinas in that period, followed by chapters on political and cultural changes in that period. There are only two significant problems with what is otherwise a superb presentation: a non-chronological methodology and a lack of a single supporting map of Romanov domains (there are two maps of St Petersburg's layout). In the first case, Lincoln tends to keep coming back to Tsars in subsequent chapters on culture, politics, etc which is very confusing. Indeed, he seems in a rush to plow through the biographies of the Tsars, then revisit their cultural accomplishments, then come back again and discuss their political accomplishments, and then maybe discuss a few scandals or wars. As for the lack of maps, it makes it extremely difficult for the reader to evaluate the territorial expansions of the various Romanov rulers or Russia's growth over three centuries. Despite these two flaws, the Romanovs is a delightful read for anyone with a scholarly interest in Russian imperial history. Perhaps the three most significant rulers that Lincoln assesses are Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Nicholas II. Most histories tend to elevate Peter to hero status, but Lincoln's evaluation is more mixed. While Peter gets great credit for pushing Russia to modernize, the costs he incurred may have been too great. In particular, Lincoln questions Peter's obsession with building his capital on totally unsuitable terrain; the fact that the Russians were able to eventually succeed in constructing Peter's dream capital often disguises the fact that the human and financial losses were exorbitantly wasteful. The reader will be left to ponder the question that if Peter had built his capital elsewhere, Russia's development might have been much less painful. As for Catherine, Lincoln prefers to minimize the scandal and corruption associated with her court and view this as the golden age of Russian cultural development. Finally, Nicholas II appears as even more of a fatalistic dolt bent on self-destruction than he did in Lincoln's previous books. In sum, The Romanovs provides a solid and very readable account of Russia's development under the Tsars and Tsarinas.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Readable Account of Imperial Russia's Rulers
Review: W. Bruce Lincoln's history of the 300 years of Romanov rule in Russia (1613-1917) is easily his most readable account of Russian history. While Professor Lincoln's research is meticulous as ever, in this volume he has to cover far more ground than in his other more focused histories and thus he avoids some of the digressions that he normally might allow himself. The result is a superb one-volume history of the Tsars and Tsarinas who determined Russia's development from a minor principality into the largest empire on earth. The Romanovs consists of four parts: Muscovite beginnings (1613-1689), the Rise of an Empire (1689-1796), Empire Triumphant (1796-1894) and the Last Emperor (1894-1917). The first three parts each consist of several chapters, with the first covering biographical details of the Tsars and Tsarinas in that period, followed by chapters on political and cultural changes in that period. There are only two significant problems with what is otherwise a superb presentation: a non-chronological methodology and a lack of a single supporting map of Romanov domains (there are two maps of St Petersburg's layout). In the first case, Lincoln tends to keep coming back to Tsars in subsequent chapters on culture, politics, etc which is very confusing. Indeed, he seems in a rush to plow through the biographies of the Tsars, then revisit their cultural accomplishments, then come back again and discuss their political accomplishments, and then maybe discuss a few scandals or wars. As for the lack of maps, it makes it extremely difficult for the reader to evaluate the territorial expansions of the various Romanov rulers or Russia's growth over three centuries. Despite these two flaws, the Romanovs is a delightful read for anyone with a scholarly interest in Russian imperial history. Perhaps the three most significant rulers that Lincoln assesses are Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Nicholas II. Most histories tend to elevate Peter to hero status, but Lincoln's evaluation is more mixed. While Peter gets great credit for pushing Russia to modernize, the costs he incurred may have been too great. In particular, Lincoln questions Peter's obsession with building his capital on totally unsuitable terrain; the fact that the Russians were able to eventually succeed in constructing Peter's dream capital often disguises the fact that the human and financial losses were exorbitantly wasteful. The reader will be left to ponder the question that if Peter had built his capital elsewhere, Russia's development might have been much less painful. As for Catherine, Lincoln prefers to minimize the scandal and corruption associated with her court and view this as the golden age of Russian cultural development. Finally, Nicholas II appears as even more of a fatalistic dolt bent on self-destruction than he did in Lincoln's previous books. In sum, The Romanovs provides a solid and very readable account of Russia's development under the Tsars and Tsarinas.
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