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Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I
In the years before the First World War, the great European powers were ruled by three first cousins: King George V of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war that set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world.
Miranda Carter uses the cousins' correspondence and a host of historical sources to tell the tragicomic story of a tiny, glittering, solipsistic world that was often preposterously out of kilter with its times, struggling to stay in command of politics and world events as history overtook it. George, Nicholas and Wilhelm is a brilliant and sometimes darkly hilarious portrait of these men—damaged, egotistical Wilhelm; quiet, stubborn Nicholas; and anxious, dutiful George—and their lives, foibles and obsessions, from tantrums to uniforms to stamp collecting. It is also alive with fresh, subtle portraits of other familiar figures: Queen Victoria—grandmother to two of them, grandmother-in-law to the third—whose conservatism and bullying obsession with family left a dangerous legacy; and Edward VII, the playboy "arch-vulgarian" who turned out to have a remarkable gift for international relations and the theatrics of mass politics. At the same time, Carter weaves through their stories a riveting account of the events that led to World War I, showing how the personal and the political interacted, sometimes to devastating effect.
For all three men the war would be a disaster that destroyed forever the illusion of their close family relationships, with any sense of peace and harmony shattered in a final coda of murder, betrayal and abdication.
"Starred Review. [A] witty, shrewd examination of the twilight of the great European monarchies." - Publishers Weekly
"Carter sharply sorts history in terms of the personal ruling styles of these three fallible monarchs." - Kirkus Reviews
"An irresistible narrative for history buffs." - Booklist
"I couldn't put this book down. The whole thing really lives and breathes - and it's very funny. That these three absurd men could ever have held the fate of Europe in their hands is a fact as hilarious as it is terrifying." - Zadie Smith
"A wonderfully fresh and beautifully choreographed work of history."
- Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday (UK)
"A hauntingly tempting proposition for a book ...The parallel, interrelated lives of Kaiser Wilhelm II, George V, and Nicholas II are ...a prism though which to tell the march to the first World War, the creation of the modern industrial world and the follies of hereditary courts and the eccentricities of their royal trans-European cousinhood ... An entertaining and accessible study of power and personality." - Simon Sebag Montefiore, Financial Times
"Fresh and enjoyable ... Carter's thoughtful reintroduction of the vividly human late 19th century international politics is timely and welcome."
- Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian (UK)
"Carter draws masterful portraits of her subjects and tells the complicated story of Europe's failing international relations well ... A highly readable and well-documented account." - Margaret MacMillan, The Spectator (UK)
This information about George, Nicholas and Wilhelm was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Roderick Field
Miranda Carter was educated at St. Paul's Girls' School and Exeter College, Oxford. She worked as a publisher and journalist before beginning research on her biography of Anthony Blunt in 1994. She lives in London with her husband and two sons. Anthony Blunt: His Lives (2001), her first book, won the Royal Society of Literature Award and the Orwell Prize, and was shortlisted for many other prizes, including the Guardian First Book Award and the Whitbread Biography Award. In the US it was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the seven best books of 2002. Her second book was George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I, which was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Biography) in 2010.
Miranda is married with two sons and lives ...
... Full Biography
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