How long does it take to read The Romanovs?
1613-1918
The Romanovs by Simon Sebag-Montefiore takes about 14 hours 5 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 14 hours 5 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 2012. 768 pages, about 211,200 words.
29 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 23 hours 28 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 14 hours 5 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 8 hours 48 minutes |
The page count is the median across 10 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
From the Introduction... In some ways, this book is a study of character and the distorting effect of absolute power on personality. It is partly a family story of love, marriage, adultery and children, but it is not like other such stories—royal families are always extraordinary because power both sweetens and contaminates the traditional familial chemistry: the allure and corruption of power so often trump the loyalty and affection of blood. This is a history of the monarchs, their families and retinues, but it is also a portrait of absolutism in Russia—and whatever else one believes about Russia, its culture, its soul, its essence have always been exceptional, a singular nature which one family aspired to personify. The Romanovs have become the very definition not only of dynasty and magnificence but also of despotism, a parable of the folly and arrogance of absolute power. No other dynasty except the Caesars has such a place in the popular imagination and culture, and both deliver universal lessons about how personal power works, then and now. It is no coincidence that the title “tsar” derives from Caesar just as the Russian for emperor is simply the Latin “imperator.”
Subjects: Kings and rulers, Biography, History, Romanov, house of, Soviet union, kings and rulers, Soviet union, biography
