Books like The crisis of Russian autocracy by Andrew M. Verner

The reign of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra, the final chapter of the Romanov dynasty, and the influence of Rasputin, told through rich narrative and rare photographs.

The execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family at the hands of revolutionaries in 1918 is one of the pivotal events of the 20th century, an event that brought the 300-year rule of the House of Romanov to a brutal and tragic end and set the tone for the Stalinist atrocities that would follow. The truth behind these murders remained long buried under more than seventy years of myth, legend, and speculation. Then, in a sensational biography that could not have been written before glasnost, noted Russian historian Edvard Radzinsky unearthed solutions to many of the questions that had remained unanswered since the terrible events in Ekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918. Mining sources long unavailable -- including firsthand accounts of the slaying -- he creates both a fascinating portrait of the monarch and a minute-by-minute account of his terrifying last days. Included is documentation linking the order of execution directly to Lenin, as well as the suggestion that two family members may have survived the ordeal. Included, too, is the testimony of ordinary Russians who at last felt free to contribute their own recollections, documents, and handed-down secrets. Radzinsky weaves together scores of firsthand accounts into a haunting, epic narrative. The Last Tsar is an important and momentous work, one that will stand as the definitive account of the terrible last days of one of Europe's greatest dynasties. - Adapted from dust jacket.

A study of the marriage of the last Russian tsar and tsarina offers psychological insights into their relationship and covers the Empress's ill health, their relationship with confidante Ania Vyrubova, and their reliance on the infamous Rasputin.

The basic premise of this book is that it is worth presenting to the public a view of the life and reign of Nicholas II very different to the one commonly held either in the West or in Soviet Russia. To say that this book is more sympathetic than most to Russia's last monarch does not mean that it is an attempt to whitewash Nicholas II or to deny that he was by personality and temperament in many ways ill-suited to the task which fate called upon him to perform. Still less does it attempt to absolve the last Romanov sovereign from responsibility for a number of important errors committed during his reign. What I do intend is to attach the trivialization of Nicholas and his regime, and to question the unthinking imposition of Western liberal or socialist assumptions and values on the history of late imperial Russia. - Preface.