Lucy examines the extraordinary reign of Catherine the Great, and the traumatic conflict with Napoleonic France that provides the setting for the novel War and Peace.

Lucy Worsley concludes her history of the Romanov dynasty, investigating how the family's grip on Russia unraveled in their final century. She shows how the years 1825-1918 were bloody and traumatic, a period when four tsars tried - and failed - to deal with the growing pressure for constitutional reform and revolution.