Perhaps no ruler left more of an impression upon nineteenth-century Russia than Tsar Nicholas I. Indeed, the roots of nearly every important event, every major change, which occurred in Russia during the last century of Romanov rule, lie in the thirty years 1825-1855 when he sat upon the throne. During Nicholas's lifetime, many Russians admired him; some even venerated him, while others saw him as the personification of oppression. But none who lived during his reign could remain indifferent to the force of his personality and the system which he imposed upon his country. Those who felt the Emperor's heavy hand most painfully were those intellectuals who refused to conform to that system. These men sometimes suffered cruelly for their beliefs during his lifetime, and their memoirs left a dramatic record. Yet they have had their revenge. For it is their view of Nicholas as a cruel, perhaps even mentally unbalanced, tyrant, which has survived the test of time. W. Bruce Lincoln has written a book about Nicholas and his policies as Emperor, partly based on research in Soviet archives. More than that, he has written a book about the times in which Nicholas lived. This study seeks to view Nicholas as his contemporaries saw him but, at the same time, places the Emperor and his policies into a more balanced historical perspective. This book is not an apologia. But in this probing analysis its author has redressed the historical balance somewhat more in favour of Nicholas I. What emerges from this account is an intimate portrait of a man, alone and isolated, who, for three decades, shouldered the burden of ruling the world's largest Empire.