This dramatic and poignant chronicle of four generations of a Russian family begins in the dazzling court of Tsar Alexander III, traces the Ignatieff family's rise to power and influence in the imperial regime of Tsar Nicholas II, and sweeps us into an avalanche of revolution, civil war, and exile. Drawing on family diaries, on the contemplation of intriguing photographs in an old family album and on stories passed down from father to son, Michael Ignatieff movingly comes to terms with the meaning of his family's memories and histories. His book is an extraordinary account of the search for roots, and of the pain and joy we all discover in the battered pages of a family album.