Book Review: Sean McMeekin Reviews The Last Tsar for the Wall Street Journal

In a review for the Wall Street Journal, Sean McMeekin, Francis Flournoy Professor of European History and Culture at Bard College, covers Tsuyoshi Hasegawa’s The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs, a book about the dramatic end of Nicholas II’s reign in Russia. “Hasegawa won’t allow himself to fall prey to the fallacy that things had to turn out the way they did,” McMeekin writes. “His narrative is rich with observations about paths not taken and about the unintended consequences of the paths that were indeed taken, not least the baroque assassination of Rasputin in 1916.” He continues, “Hasegawa’s masterly narrative shows that it was the actions and manipulations of Russian elites pursuing their own interests that, in a ‘dazzling sequence of toppling dominoes,’ ended the Romanov dynasty.”

Post Date: 01-17-2025