Hello everyone, the recent events surround Russia have made me realize how very little I know about the pre-USSR Russian Empire and piqued my interest on the subject. I'm a casual historian so I'm looking for a more general (less detail heavy), interesting history on the Russian Empire and it's key figures starting from around Peter the Great to the end of first World War. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!
There are four books I would suggest for intelligent and accessible introductory surveys of Imperial Russian history. Firstly, Geoffrey Hosking's Russia: People and Empire 1552-1917 is a lucid and very intelligent examination of imperial expansion and the relationship of the empire to its subjects. Hosking argues that the Russian empire (rossiiskaia imperiia) was quite a different entity than the Russian people and this divergence grew into a yawning gap over time. Dominic Lieven's Empire: The Russian Empire and its Rivals does a yeoman's job of contextualizing the Russian Empire with its contemporaries as well as getting at the core of what exactly constitutes an empire. One of the most salient facts about the Russian imperial experience is the incredible ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity of the Empire. The Russian Empire: A Multi-Ethnic History by Andreas Kappeler summarizes the Romanov's attempts to resolve "national question," and how and why many of these solutions did not work. Finally, an empire is nothing without an emperor and Richard Wortman's Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy from Peter the Great to the Abdication of Nicholas II is one of the best summations of the evolution of the imperial institution and how it changed to suit the times.
Two names I would suggest to avoid until you have read more into the topic are Richard Pipes and Orlando Figes. Although both historians have their places within scholarship, their approach to 1917 is somewhat problematic and often excessively biased. Both the Russian Revolution and the rise of the USSR are akin to trains in Anna Karenina in the historiography of nineteenth-century Russia, as any sign of impending revolution takes on great significance. Both Figes and especially Pipes put a much more sinister gloss to these events than other historians. while all historians have biases, these two's patent dislike for the Bolsheviks leads to some distortion of analysis. One excellent review of Figes's A People's Tragedy noted that his portrait of Lenin reads like a Bond villain walked into a John le Carré novel.
Peter the Great by Robert K Massie
A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891 - 1924 by Orlando Figes (1996)
This is for the late imperial russia up to the end of the Civil War.
Everything that u/kieslowskifan just said. Hosking, Lieven, Kappeler, and Wortman are very good scholars and their books are both accessible and insightful. You should also be able to find these fairly easily in bookshops and on the internet.
Definitely stay away from Pipes and Figes (especially Pipes).
If you can get access to it, I'd also recommend the Cambridge History of Russia, Vol II. It's a brilliant collection of essays which will provide you with both an overview of the period and an introduction to a whole host of problems and features of Russian history in this period: reading though it should give you a fairly broad understanding of the Imperial period. But, if not, Hosking, Lieven, Kappeler, and Wortman will do you just fine.