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Books

All might have been well had Nicholas II only listened to a tiny cosmopolitan elite

The best way to govern a country is through an educated aristocracy: Dominic Lieven’s provocatively old-fashioned view, applied to the end of Tsarist Russia

30 May 2015

9:00 AM

30 May 2015

9:00 AM

Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia Dominic Lieven

Allen Lane, pp.448, £25, ISBN: 9781846143816

The veteran Russian historian Dominic Lieven’s new study of Russia’s descent towards the first world war is deeply researched, highly valuable in its focus on Russia, and unfailingly well-written: more proof of Lieven’s profound knowledge of the Russian empire.

One of his earlier works, Russia’s Rulers Under the Old Regime (1989), focused on the 150 men who ran Russia until 1917.

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