Adam Zamoyski

Autocracy tempered by strangulation

Simon Sebag Montefiore’s gripping account of life under the tsars shows how Russia has always been dedicated to autocracy

  • The Romanovs, 1613—1918

    Simon Sebag Montefiore

    Weidenfeld, pp. 768

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An ex-copper who blogs as Dominic Adler – not his real name – came up with a good phrase this week to describe where Britain is heading under this increasingly authoritarian regime: ‘Like North Korea, but run by David Brent.’ It echoed my own attempts to sum up the atmosphere in Keir Starmer’s Britain in

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