34 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
And this guy is at Oxford?, February 2, 2010
This review is from: Trotsky: A Biography (Hardcover)
The photo of Trotsky on the book's jacket is one of the most arresting I've ever seen. The face -- young, intelligent, earnest and, unobscured by the beard, appealing -- explains much about this man's complex character. And the book is billed by The New Yorker as, "unlike much work about Trotsky...the work of a historian, not an ideologue," alluding presumably to Isaac Deutscher, Trotsky's Marxist biographer. So I was well-disposed towards this book.
There's obviously much an historian's work behind Robert Service's book, but alas, I can't see much of the historian's craft in it. I was a history major and attended Oxford, and my impression was that the historian's prime directive is rigor. I fail to see much of that here. Besides editorial sloppiness and uneven annotation, there's a lack of detachment. It belies an eagerness to announce, "See, see, I told you he was a bad guy!" which I find unseemly in an historian.
Specifically:
Service makes it clear early on that his mission is to serve as an antidote to what he regards as the hagiography surrounding Trotsky. What he comes up with is this rather mean-spirited effort to bring Trotsky down a notch or two, mainly by gratuitous and petty personal jabs, often following faint praise. While admitting to Trotsky's intellect, organizing acumen and faithfulness to his creed, Service apparently finds the revolutionary's narcissism a worthy counterweight.
Service relates Trotsky's scrupulous reading of a friend's book:
"[T]he exclamation marks in the margins testify to angry self-righteousness and intellectual self-regard."
I've done that before -- exclamation marks noting something interesting or that I agree with strongly. Was I being self-righteous or egotistical? Risibly, Service opens himself to the same charge later, when he quotes Trotsky relating how, after being on a prison barge for three weeks in Siberia, he "was put ashore with one of the women exiles, a close associate of mine from Nikolaev". Service then uses his own exclamation mark, as he observes: "The last sentence refers to his pregnant wife Alexandra. Just possibly Trotsky was trying to spare her feelings at the time of writing. Even so, what misleading primness!" A rather innocent remark is construed (with that Trotskyist exclamation mark) as marking a character flaw.
Service thanks a half-dozen people for reading his manuscript. Apparently their only task was to tell the author how brilliant he is (or maybe how brilliant they are), because they certainly did a lousy job of proofreading.
Service identifies one figure as Karlson, then the same person in following passages as Carlson.
Service's use of commas evidently depends on his mood. Sometimes he uses them to separate independent clause, but usually not. So we are treated to the likes of (speaking of a Trotsky cousin): "He had recently married Fanni who was the principal of the state school for Jewish girls in Odessa and it was her salary that kept the couple afloat...." This kind of run-on is everywhere.
In one paragraph, Service starts calling Bronstein, Trotsky; then in the next calls him Bronstein again. In fact, Service gives a sloppy, off-hand treatment of Lev Bronstein's becoming Leon Trotsky. When did Bronstein finally settle on calling himself Trotsky? Did colleagues and intimates call him Trotsky or did they call him Bronstein or Lev or some nickname?
Service gives no explanation about how Bronstein/Trotsky got busted the first couple of times. What exactly were the charges? (Sedition?) We aren't told -- only the rather vague connection with Lev's published polemics, but nothing specific about Trotsky as an agitator, even though Service says Trotsky believed that street agitation was necessary. You'd think there would be transcripts for Service to access.
Service is inconsistent in his digs. He says Trotsky "disliked boastfulness," then in the next sentence describes how Trotsky "went on loudly about himself". Service says Trotsky was not well regarded, yet in next passage says he was "marked for leadership". Really?
Service is sketchy about Trotsky's unifying beliefs; he doesn't provide at the outset a précis of Trotsky's political philosophy. He talks about Trotsky's "permanent revolution" without explaining what he meant by it.
The footnotes are haphazard. Example amongst many: "His eloquence was recognized but the feeling was strong that..." (no footnote). Here Service belies his membership in the Wikipedia school of weasel words.
Service tells us of Trotsky's scorn for the Red Cross, as an imperialist tool, then opines that this exposes Trotsky's "lack of humanity". A proper historian would allow the reader to draw his own conclusion or at least limit this kind of stuff to a preface or end chapter.
By the way, I don't see any anti-Semitism here, as others claim to have found. Service's coverage of Trotsky's Jewish background seems mattter-of-fact and uncolored by prejudice.
In summary:
The charitable view of this book is that the enormous body of research Service claims to have done has biased him unfavorably against Trotsky and informs every detail of his narrative. I think it more likely that Service has approached Trotsky like Trevor-Roper approached Hitler: "Trotsky as monster -- a Russian Robespierre -- is a given, and I must remind readers from time to time that I've not fallen in love with my subject."
This may work for a polemic but not for a purportedly sober history. And this is very frustrating for a book that is, if you can filter out the editorial sloppiness, the gratuitous asides and the run-on sentences, quite readable and informative, which is why I give it three stars.
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44 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Even gets the date of Trotsky's murder wrong!, April 7, 2010
This review is from: Trotsky: A Biography (Hardcover)
An appallingly inaccurate, jaundiced, two-year wonder of a bio. I stopped counting errors after the first 20 pages. I simply cannot believe this fellow is a full professor at a leading university. Claims to be the only "full length bio" of Trotsky by a "non-Trotskyite," which is also not accurate: Isaac Deutscher was no Trotskyite. Unfortunate, this, because the cover pic will undoubtedly sell a lot of books. Also, because there's lots of new archival material available that should have helped us to have, finally, a more objective account of this fraught, complex, but undeniably important historical figure. Of all the injustices that Trotsky has suffered, before and after death, this bio is surely one of the worst. If you must read it, please don't buy it here....just wait around for a remaindered copy to become available.
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