Books like Alexander II and the modernization of Russia by Werner Eugen Mosse

A Christian Bible is a collection of sacred books divided into the Old and New Testaments that a Christian denomination regards as divinely inspired scripture.

This present study, among other things, redresses the balance to some extent in Nicholas's favor. Certainly it is not intended as an apology for Russia's firm, sometimes cruel, Emperor. It is, however, an effort to view Nicholas as his contemporaries saw him and, given the distance of some 150 years since his accession, to place him and his policies in a more balanced historical perspective. - Preface.

Alexander II was Russia's Lincoln, and the greatest reformer tsar since Peter the Great. He was also one of the most contradictory, and fascinating, of history's supreme leaders. He freed the serfs, yet launched vicious wars. He engaged in the sexual exploits of a royal Don Juan, yet fell profoundly in love. He ruled during the "Russian Renaissance" of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Turgenev -- yet his Russia became the birthplace of modern terrorism. His story could be that of one of Russia's greatest novels, yet it is true. It is also crucially important today. It is a tale that runs on parallel tracks. Alexander freed 23 million Russian slaves, reformed the justice system and the army, and very nearly became the father of Russia's first constitution and the man who led that nation into a new era of western-style liberalism. Yet it was during this feverish time that modern nihilism first arose. On the sidelines of Alexander's state dramas, a group of radical, disaffected young people first experimented with dynamite, and first began to use terrorism. Fueled by the writings of a few intellectuals and zealots, they built bombs, dug tunnels, and planned ambushes. They made no less than six unsuccessful attempts on Alexander's life. Finally, the parallel tracks joined, when a small cell of terrorists, living next door to Dostoevsky, built the fatal bomb that ended the life of the last great Tsar. It stopped Russian reform in its tracks. [from Publisher description].