Edvard Radzinsky is justly famous as both a biographer and a dramatist and he brings both skills to bear in this vivid page-turning rich portrait of one of the greatest of all Romanovs. Alexander II was Russia s Lincoln -- he freed the serfs promised a new more liberal state for everyone yet was brought down by a determined group of terrorist anarchists who tried to kill him six times before finally fatefully succeeding. His story proves the timeless lesson that in Russia it is dangerous to start reforms but even more dangerous to stop them. It also shows that the traps and dangers encountered in today s war on terrorists were there 150 years ago.