"This detailed biography of Tsar Nicholas Il's intellectual and cosmopolitan cousin is a major contribution to scholarship in Russian history. Based on extensive archival research in Moscow, Paris, and elsewhere, and utilizing many materials unavailable to researchers until recently, the study also draws on interviews conducted earlier by Professor Cockfield with high-placed figures who had first-hand familiarity with aspects of the figures and events treated....the biography sheds valuable light on social, political, and intellectual life in Russia during the period and on major events, including the uprising of 1905, the assassination of Rasputin, and the great revolution of 1917 and its sequels. Well-written, rich in detail, and carefully documented, this compelling volume offers to the general reader as well as to specialists in Russian history a fine portrait of the Grand Duke and his times." Catharine Savage Brosman author Images of War in France: Fiction, Art, Ideology "The author has used skillfully a large variety of archival and other materials in this interesting biography of an overlooked but significant member of the Romanov family. The section devoted to his experiences in the 1917 Revolution is especially significant." David MacKenzie Professor Emeritus of History University of North Carolina, Greensboro
