Overview

A clear-eyed exploration of the career of Leon Trotsky, the tragic hero who “dreamed of justice and then wreaked havoc,” by a leading expert on human rights and the former Soviet Union Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in southern Ukraine, Trotsky was both a world-class intellectual and a man capable of the most narrow-minded ideological dogmatism. He was an effective military strategist and an adept diplomat, who staked the fate of the Bolshevik revolution on the meager foundation of a Europe-wide Communist upheaval. He was a master politician who played his cards badly in the momentous struggle for power against Stalin in the 1920s. And he was an assimilated, indifferent Jew who was among the first to foresee that Hitler’s triumph would mean disaster for his fellow European Jews, and that Stalin would attempt to forge an alliance with Hitler if Soviet overtures to the Western democracies failed. Here, Trotsky emerges as a brilliant and brilliantly flawed man. Rubenstein offers us a Trotsky who is mentally acute and impatient with others, one of the finest students of contemporary politics who refused to engage in the nitty-gritty of party organization in the 1920s, when Stalin was maneuvering, inexorably, toward Trotsky’s own political oblivion. As Joshua Rubenstein writes in his preface, “Leon Trotsky haunts our historical memory. A preeminent revolutionary figure and a masterful writer, Trotsky led an upheaval that helped to define the contours of twentieth-century politics.” In this lucid and judicious evocation of Trotsky’s life, Joshua Rubenstein gives us an interpretation for the twenty-first century.

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Reviews

This trim book . . . pulls together all the essentials of the life of Leon Trotsky and the revolution he so significantly shaped into a seamless, intelligent, and wonderfully accessible synopsis. --Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs --Robert Legvold Foreign Affairs

This trim book . . . pulls together all the essentials of the life of Leon Trotsky and the revolution he so significantly shaped into a seamless, intelligent, and wonderfully accessible synopsis. -Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs -- Robert Legvold * Foreign Affairs * In this new, concise biography, Rubenstein offers a more balanced view of Trotsky....There are many reasons to commend this work - among them, Rubenstein's depoliticization of its subject and the book's succinctness and readability. -Peter Ephross, The Forward -- Peter Ephross * The Forward * An accessible scholarly account of a man whose life spanned continents, whose charisma was legendary and whose ideas sparked a revolution and its backlash. -Kirkus Reviews * Kirkus Reviews * . . . this is both a good read and a balanced, plausible interpretation of the man in his times. Rubenstein sees things to admire and deplore, and achieves the mix of empathy and critical distance a good biographer needs. -Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Guardian -- Sheila Fitzpatrick * The Guardian *

'it is both a good read and a balanced, plausible interpretation of the man in his times... He sees things to admire in Trotsky and things to deplore. Seeking to understand how Trotsky saw the world, while not sharing that vision, he achieves the mixture of empathy and critical distance that a good biographer needs.' (Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Guardian) 'Rubenstein handles complex issues sensitively in this accessible introduction to a flawed but fascinating 20th-century giant.' (John McIlory, Times Higher Education)

Joshua Rubenstein has produced a steadily intelligent, insightful biography of one the last century's most alluring intellectual-politicians, a man of astonishing brilliance and no less astonishing rigidities. --Steven J. Zipperstein, author of Imagining Russian Jewry: Memory, History, Identity --Steven J. Zipperstein

"""An accessible scholarly account of a man whose life spanned continents, whose charisma was legendary and whose ideas sparked a revolution and its backlash.""—Kirkus Reviews * Kirkus Reviews * ""This trim book . . . pulls together all the essentials of the life of Leon Trotsky and the revolution he so significantly shaped into a seamless, intelligent, and wonderfully accessible synopsis.""—Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs -- Robert Legvold * Foreign Affairs *  “. . . this is both a good read and a balanced, plausible interpretation of the man in his times. Rubenstein sees things to admire and deplore, and achieves the mix of empathy and critical distance a good biographer needs.”—Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Guardian -- Sheila Fitzpatrick * The Guardian * ""In this new, concise biography, Rubenstein offers a more balanced view of Trotsky. . . . There are many reasons to commend this work — among them, Rubenstein’s depoliticization of its subject and the book’s succinctness and readability.""—Peter Ephross, The Forward -- Peter Ephross * The Forward *"

Author Information

Joshua Rubenstein was a staff member of Amnesty International USA from 1975 to 2012 and is a longtime associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

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