Engaging ... It is hard to find anything new to say about Rasputin, but this story of credulous, out-of-touch monarchs steering their country into disaster never loses its sinister appeal.
A deeply researched examination ... Mr. Beevor relies on these reports, as well as other testimonies and memoirs, to create a catalog of drunken debauchery and mayhem ascribed to the mad monk. It is easy to lose track of which stories to believe and which to discount.
Beevor makes no claim to have uncovered any great revelations ... With his characteristically sharp eye for telling detail, extracts enough gems to decorate a whole Romanov party dress ... Despite the crowded historiographical field, Beevor finds a fresh angle. His thesis is that the myth was actually a key part of Rasputin’s political and ultimately historical impact ... An exceptionally well-sourced, morally serious and often darkly comic account.
A fascinating, evidence-based biography that absorbs throughout ... This scrupulously researched book helps explain how a social-climbing, charismatic mystic from Siberia helped bring down one of the world’s oldest autocracies ... Rasputin and the Downfall of the Romanovs, this readable and wonderfully informative biography, opens a window on to the fantasy world of the Russian royal couple and their delusion that a soothsayer from Siberia could ever be their salvation.
Beevor is one of our finest narrative historians, with sharp judgment, a sweet pen and a deep understanding of the world in which he works ... Rather than trying to make sense of Rasputin the man — a task as hopeless as trying to catch smoke — Beevor uses him to illuminate the tragic blundering by which he nudged the Romanov dynasty into their graves and Russia into the arms of Bolshevism ... Beautifully written ... Rasputin is a meditation on history as well as a masterclass in smooth, judicious prose.
Beevor is a distinguished historian of 20th-century crisis, and what he relates here has been solidly documented archivally with the help of the Russian scholar Lyuba Vinogradova. The result is crisply written and swiftly narrated: it tells a very good story ... Without a strikingly different angle or stash of original material to offer, Beevor springs no surprises – and treads territory that’s already thoroughly mapped ... Worse, Beevor’s picture of Rasputin himself is strangely two-dimensional, lacking in nuance ... A decent book, but a disappointing one. It is not among Beevor’s best.
This isn’t a conventional biography ... Rather, it is a dual examination of the decline of imperial Russia and the backdrop against which Rasputin’s influence was enabled ... A fascinating look at one of history’s most slippery figures through a contemporary lens.
Brilliant ... Sets out to disentangle the man from the legend ... What emerges is not only the story of one extraordinary individual, but also a deeply felt portrait of a ruling dynasty so frightened, isolated and dysfunctional that it placed its faith in a wandering Siberian mystic ... Rasputin emerges neither as the demonic puppet-master of legend nor as an innocent holy man ... The result is a fantastic, vivid portrait not only of Rasputin but of the twilight of imperial Russia.
Historians have difficulty resisting Rasputin’s allure. There have been many books written about him, but none as well honed as this one. Beevor, arguably Britain’s greatest living historian, has a remarkable capacity to make complex topics comprehensible and downright fun. Simple sentences convey complicated ideas mellifluously. The author mixes intelligent analysis with bizarre anecdote, never quite camouflaging his fondness for gossip. His narrative is packed with bizarre characters—a cross-dressing assassin, a minister afflicted with syphilitic insanity, a gaggle of grand ladies in thrall to a narcissistic charlatan. The drama builds to a crescendo as Rasputin shatters a brittle autocracy.
This crisply narrated account focuses on how the rumours and conspiracy theories that swirled around Rasputin during the last years of the Russian Empire destroyed the Romanov autocracy. Within the powerful currents of those rumours, the author asserts, lies a lesson for our times ... Beevor narrates the well-rehearsed story with verve, and with exasperated incredulity at the plot’s incompetent execution.
Beevor persuasively argues that many—but not all—of the most salacious stories about Rasputin were exaggerated or fabricated, but the corruption which seemed to follow in his wake was very real ... Rasputin’s role in the downfall of the Romanovs has been shrouded in legend, and this eerily timely book illustrates the sordid reality behind the sinister myth.
A crisp narrative ... Beevor blends arresting imagery, bizarre details, and mordant observations ... An informative page-turner on the mystic who captivated the last czar’s family.
