King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War,   ISBN:9780802716774

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King, Kaiser, Tsar is a biography on the lives of three rulers whose choices not only ended the age of monarchs but also gave birth to the 20th century. The irony, and tragedy, of the lives of King Edward VII, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Tsar Nicholas II, is that they were cousins who ancestry and relations were spread across Europe. It was these men who decisions, and relationships, that changed history and the modern world both through rational decisions and sometimes personal flaws.

However more than just a biography of these men's lives, King, Kaiser, and Tsar is a look into an almost forgotten world when monarch still controlled much of the West and the modern world. Since their births in the 19th century, Edward, Wilhelm, and Nicholas lived in an age where their needs were met in every conceivable way and beyond. The glory that surrounded their thrones could be seen during every day of their lives where hundreds of servants easily attended to their needs. This is not including the hundreds of millions who were subjects of their empires and who could be found around the world. King, Kaiser, and Tsar is study on the world of the late 19th century and early 20th century which even now, barely 100 years later, is unimaginable when courts, aristocracies, and imperial glory, were still hailed as something admirable.

What I was impressed with the most was not the major choices these men made but the lives they lived behind the throne and out of sight of their empires. The author gives an impressive account of their education, romances, fears, and disappointments that the average British, German, or Russian would have been unaware of. These were real humans aside from the crowns that they wore and they were as flawed and imperfect as everyone else. The use of diaries and letters reveals who these men were and how they thought and perceived not only their god given right but also each other. Politics for them was not only an international affair but also a family one which only added more issues.

An excellent book if one wants to not only understand these three men but a major era of history where we can see one age ending and another beginning, King, Kaiser, and Tsar is an impressive look into the past.

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When I got this book in very good condition and in a timely manner I immediately started to read it and I haven't put it down since. Good insight and a fast paced page turner reads like a novel but what you are reading is history-who needs soap operas when you have these three men and their families!! If you are looking for a different view point to how World War I started this is your book. Enjoy meeting the King, the Kaiser and the Tsar it will keep you on your toes in trying to remember who is all related to whom but very interesting book.

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I was very surprised, shocked really, by the sloppy research, the numerous little errors of fact that kept cropping up while I read KING, KAISER, TSAR. I'm not a historian, or an editor, but, as someone with a general acquaintance with memoirs and biographies of George V; Tsar Nicholas II, and Kaiser Wilhelm, and other royals of the time period, it was pretty shocking to come across errors in almost every chapter.

It's as if the author breezed through various other histories and biographies and regurgitated facts (incorrectly) just to suit herself.

For example, the author states that the Empress Frederick, who died in 1901, was buried in an English coffin according to Anglican rites, although in truth, Wilhelm II had her coffin placed in a German-made casket and German burial rites recited. But apparently, repeating the old lie about an English coffin, etc., suits the author's theory that the Empress "remained an English Princess to the end." What nonsense! (Gee, why not go further and repeat the old lie, put about by anti-English German journalists, that the Empress was buried naked wrapped in a Union Jack?)

The author also states that the Empress' daughter Victoria fell in love with Prince Alexander of Battenberg at her Aunt Beatrice's wedding -- a wedding which neither Victoria or her parents attended. Prince George of Greece married someone named Olga? No, he married Princess Marie Bonaparte. Winston Churchill was First Sea Lord when war broke out in 1914? No, it was Prince Louis of Battenberg. The author has the Prince and Princess of Wales (George and Mary) leaving for their tour of Australia in 1897 instead of 1901.

These are only a few examples of this author's poor workmanship. Didn't she even care enough about her subject to get her facts straight? After finding error upon irritating error while reading this book, I have to conclude that she didn't.

I'm sorry that the publisher didn't choose instead to publish a full collection of the Royal letters quoted in this volume, rather than this shoddy, so-called history. I could have learned more, and learned CORRECTLY, from the actual letters of the protagonists, as opposed to being annoyed by a historian who can't be bothered to get facts correct.

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"King, Kaiser, Tsar" gives a fascinating, up-close and personal look at George V of Great Britain, Wilhelm II of Germany and Nicholas II of Russia and the key roles they played in the 30-odd years that led up to World War I. Especially enthralling are the differences between the responsibilities and personalities of a constitutional monarch, an autocrat in an empire with a parliament but little real democracy, and an absolute monarch totally unsuited for his role.
Catrine Clay quotes voluminously from family letters and other sources concerning King George and Tsar Nicholas, showing how the complex intertwining of relationships among the children and grandchildren of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert made statesmanship and diplomacy a family affair as well as a national one in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Where Clay's otherwise fine book falls short is in her biased and very negative treatment of Kaiser Wilhelm. Her English roots are painfully apparent every time she talks of him, with many negative comments, few positive, and almost none of the humanizing quotes from family letters she gives from the lives of the other two monarchs. Clay's noting of Wilhelm's birth trauma and the lifelong problems his withered arm and other disabilities caused him does not make up for her one-sided treatment of his life, taken as a whole.
Nevertheless, the book, overall, is well worth a read for those who want to learn what European life was like in the days when monarchs still counted for something.

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Other reviews have pretty much covered the content and general scope of the book -- a very interesting, fairly detailed (as much as the broad subject matter and limited page count will allow) biography of 3 rulers and the way they were influenced by their world, and influenced the world around them. While very critical of Wilhelm, she is also fairly sympathetic, portraying him as a man who was often 'left out', due to factors largely beyond his control.

While overall it was very well written, the structure of the text led to a few minor issues.

a) Because it covers three people, the content isn't always chronological, leading to some confusion, and occassional repetition of facts and incidents.

b)Some of the repetition got rather annoying. (The author reminds us about 20 times that George was a constitutional monarch [and therefore required to follow the demands of parliament], while Nicky and Willie were absolute monarchs.

c) More pictures would have been nice, as well as a more detailed family-tree. (Many people mentioned in the text are not included in the tree. The extremely complex interrationship between the various royal families would have made a more detailed chart very helpful.)