The Three Emperors: Help needed

[turoldus]

I'm reading Miranda Carter's "The Three Emperors" which I find good overall but somewhat judgmental and lacking in empathy for its subjects; I guess it's no accident that most of the good reviews for the book are from people who seem to have a beef with the monarchy. Can anyone recommend a more "fair and balanced" book on the period?

[sandwiches]

Good reviews from people with a beef with the monarchy?

Guardian review not that enthusiastic?


www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/sep/19/three-emperors-miranda-carter-review


Here, she sets herself an even bigger task, taking on the history of Europe - which in those colonial times pretty much meant the entire world - from 1860 to 1920. As a result, she is obliged to spend large stretches rehearsing grand political narratives - the Boer wars, the Winter Palace massacre, the building-up of the German navy - which at times becomes overwhelming (the book runs to almost 600 pages) and just a little dull. There is also the problem that some of these stories are already as worn as a George V penny. Being told how Princess May of Teck was obliged to turn her marriage ambitions smartish from dead Prince Eddy to his brother, or how Rasputin had to be poisoned, shot and drowned before anyone was satisfied that he was really dead is fun but familiar, sometimes wearyingly so.

[sandwiches]

Actually, the Telegraph review not that enthusiastic either:


www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/6273222/The-Three-Emperors-by-Miranda-Carter-review.html

It is her misfortune, rather than her fault, that none of the principal characters turns out to be particularly interesting....Did any of them, in any case, really conduct foreign policy?

This book makes a brave case that, at least at the start of last century, family consideration still played an integral part in international relations. But, despite the welter of evidence its author has assembled (not all of it helpful to her cause), the final verdict has to be one of "not proven".

Where are all these good reviews?

Incidently, this comment from the Telegraph review echoes something that always stuck in the back of my mind:

The Three Emperors is rightly unsparing in its criticism of the role of George V in bringing about that grisly outcome. The man who claimed to be Nicholas II’s “devoted friend” stands accused of having stood in the way of any attempt to bring the Imperial family to Britain. In the damning words of Carter, the king “panicked and placed his own worries ahead of the family relationship which he had always said counted for so much”. But at least that royal sin of omission in 1918 provides a kind of coda for this book – as the author candidly writes, George V’s refusal to offer safety to his cousin delivered the “final blow” to the cult of family that his Queen-Empress grandmother had so heartily endorsed.

[humphreyclarke]

On Kaiser Wilhelm the 'go-to guy' is John C Rohl at the University of Sussex - his stuff might be a bit too dry and scholarly though. I picked up Giles MacDonogh's 'The Last Kaiser' at a second hand book sale the other day and that seems pretty good - It also takes a more sympathetic view of Wilhelm then you are likely to get from Miranda Carter.

On the period in general - one really good book is Dreadnought by Robert Massie. It's a narrative history of the run up to WWI which reads like a novel but is also well researched. Massie also did a biography of Nicholas and Alexandra which is supposed to be good.