This is an auction for THE TRAGEDY OF LEON TROTSKY by Ronald Segal.

“Any biographer of Trotsky has an enormous problem to confront in the form of Isaac Deutscher's classic three-volume biography. But, in this, the centennial year of Trotsky's birth, Segal's effort has the merit of being a fraction of the size of Deutscher's opus without sacrificing any of the essentials. The story of Trotsky's rise to dominance among Russian revolutionaries is the story of a writer and intellectual who was also a man of action. Segal follows Trotsky from his youth on the Ukrainian steppes--though Jewish, Trotsky's family lived outside the Pale and was not Yiddish-speaking--and in Odessa and thence to Siberia, Zurich, Geneva, and the other stopping-off places familiar to the oft-exiled Russian radicals. Meanwhile Trotsky made his reputation through words, and Segal carefully integrates Trotsky's extensive writings into his narrative. However Segal, like Deutscher, finds nothing to criticize in his subject; of Trotsky's inaction vis-a-vis arch-enemy Stalin, he says that ""the heel of this Achilles was not his pride. It was the innocence and the integrity of his faith."" And this despite the marked lack of innocence Trotsky showed as head of the Red Army. But Segal's portrait of Trotsky in his Mexican exile is well-drawn, appropriately emphasizing Trotsky's great literary achievements while he was under attack by his Stalinist enemies. Segal's Trotsky is thus the artist finally achieving self-realization. It is a compelling story, despite the occasional lapses into idolatry; and falls at a midpoint between Irving Howe's briefer, sterner examination and Deutscher's dazzled behemoth.”

• Kirkus Reviews (US)

Hardback 1979.

444 pages + 16 pages of photographs.

Very good condition.

The cost of shipping is $5.95 (tracked mail).

There is of course no charge for shipping if you collect this book from my shop in Palmerston ?North following the auction.

Payment within seven days, please.