Christopher Clark writes:

As its subtitle suggests, Miranda Carter’s intelligent, entertaining and informative book folds dynastic and political narratives into a panoramic account of Europe’s road to war. The first and most successfully handled of her themes is the saga of the three cousins, Willy, Nicky and George. They were linked not just by blood, but also by their shared upbringing in a world of extreme artifice, deference and privilege. From their earliest years, all three cousins had to accustom themselves to the tedious routines of court protocol. At Easter, for example, the Russian imperial children were required to stand motionless during a three-hour church service before taking part in the ceremonial egg-giving, a protracted ritual in which the tsar greeted his 5000 imperial guards and personally presented each with a porcelain egg. In all three empires, a childhood at court unfolded in almost total isolation from the wider world. There were animal menageries at Sandringham and Gatchina and echoing nurseries full of huge toys, but little in the way of children from the same age group to play with. The most important relationships were formed with ‘servants, pets and relations, in that order’.

(LRB 22 October 2009)

Fig Tree | hardback 584 pp. |ISBN: 9780670915569