Table of Contents

From the Tartars to the 20th century - the state and its rulers; profile of an elite; educating rulers; the roads to power; the many faces of the beast; P.N. Durnovo - the policeman as sage and prophet; A.N. Kulomzin - a Russian Victorian; aristocrats in politics - the brothers Alexander and Aleksei Obolensky; autocracy, bureaucracy, catastrophe. Appendices: a note on sources; men appointed to the State Council 1894-1914; Russian State institutions.