Trotsky by Robert Service

Cafe Society
1

I picked up Robert Service’s Trotsky from my local library the other day. Service is an Oxford historian, the book’s published by Harvard, those are good signs.

But I just looked it up online and boy, this book got some negative reviews. Now granted, most of the critiques I saw seem to be from fans of Trotsky, but they are really hard on Service; they maintain he made a lot of factual errors in this volume. They’re so hard on Service that I’m wondering if I really am reading an error-ridden book.

I’ll be straight: Trotsky’s life isn’t something I’m going to dedicate a ton of time to, not something I’m going to read up all the literature on, at least not right now. I just wanted to get a basic idea about the man. Is Service’s book so bad that I should ditch it? Or are the critics over-exaggerating?

2

I take it this wasn’t the Canadian poet Robert Service?

3

Robert Service has long been very anti-communist. Anyone who feels any sympathy for communism would likely have a problem with his books. Trotsky still has a following since he has purged before the worst of the Soviet’s crimes against humanity so Service’s very critical biography would elicit bad reviews from fans of Trotsky.

4

No, this guy’s a Russian History professor at Oxford.

I’d read a biography of Trotsky by the other Robert Service:

5

:eek: My lack of God! It’s Trotsky!!!