Trotsky: A Biography - Softcover

Robert Service

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330439693 ISBN 13: 9780330439695

Publisher: Pan, 2010

Synopsis

Revolutionary practitioner, theorist, factional chief, sparkling writer, 'ladies' man' (e.g., his affair with Frieda Kahlo), icon of the Revolution, anti-Jewish Jew, philosopher of everyday life, grand seigneur of his household, father and hunted victim, Trotsky lived a brilliant life in extraordinary times. Robert Service draws on hitherto unexamined archives and on his profound understanding of Russian history to draw a portrait of the man and his legacy, revealing that though his followers have represented Trotsky as a pure revolutionary soul and a powerful intellect unjustly hounded into exile by Stalin and his henchmen. The reality is very different, as this masterful and compelling biography reveals.

About this title

Review:

`The author at last follows up his biographies of Lenin and Stalin with this well-researched working examining Trotsky's complex ideas and the reasons behind his exile and murder.'
--`The Hit List', The Independent on Sunday

`Seldom has the pathology of the revolutionary type and its murderous consequences, been more mercilessly exposed than in this exemplary biography.' --Robert Harris, Sunday Times Culture

`There is much to attract the general reader of biography and fascinating findings from the archives for the specialist. Service's biography is a Trotsky for our times...'
--Ronald Grigor-Suny, History Today

'bold and balanced biography.' --Guardian

'It's a complicated story and Robert Service is just the man to disentangle it. With biographies of Stalin and Lenin already under his belt, he has delved into unexplored archives and does Trotsky proud.'
--Seven, Sunday Telegraph

'Service is never unkind to his subject, but nor is he an acolyte. One of the great functions his book performs, aside from being a compelling read, is to flesh out a non-Trotskyite version of Trotsky... There is not moralism in Robert Service's narrative - and there is no need. It is plain from the facts that Trotsky was a quite brilliant historical phenomenon; and not a very nice man.' --Paperback of the Week, Observer

'a fascinating new slant on one of the leading figures behind the Russian revolution.'
--Choice Magazine

'Service's biography answers so many questions...The book contains details hidden for years, so jump in and relive the revolution.' --Nick Ellis, Bournemouth Echo

'The author uses his profound knowledge of Russia and of Bolshevism to give us the best and most nuanced biography of a man without whom the Revolution might well not have succeeded. This is not the Trotsky many in the dwindling left-wing intelligentsia have known. The Trotsky we see here was `arrogant and imperious', fully the equal of Lenin or Stalin in barbarity. At last, students of Soviet Russia have a biography they can trust.'
--Contemporary Review

From the Publisher:

Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize

About this edition

• Publisher: Pan
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0330439693
• ISBN 13: 9780330439695
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 624