Bernard Pares was a contemporary of the events he so breathtakingly describes. Here we see the story of the Russian Revolution from the vantage point of its most famous victims ¿ the Romanov family. The result is a masterly and authoritative account of the reign of Nicholas II, from his accession in 1894 until his murder in Ekaterinburg, along with the rest of his family, in 1918. Pares¿s book vividly describes the event surrounding the Russo-Japanese war, ¿Bloody Sunday¿, the ill-fated experiment of constitutional government, the traumas and tragedies of the First World War. There are memorable portraits of Witte and Stolypin, of Rasputin and Kerensky, and of the doomed imperial family. Above all, there is an intimate feel for the subject which could only come from one who had known so many of the people and events at first hand.