Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary (Hardcover) by Bertrand M Patenaude

from Opinionated

An excellent portait of "Old Man" Trotsky and his final days. Regardless of your politics its hard not to feel a great deal of sympathy for Trotsky - hounded remorselessly by the GPU, his entire family either captured, executed or driven to suicide - his world gets smaller and smaller until it co...

from ericlee

I bought this book when it first came out and when I began reading it, for some reason it didn't grab me and I put it aside. Having just read it now, years later, I cannot imagine what the problem was. This is a brilliantly-written and thoroughly-researched study of the very last years of Trotsky...

from EricCostello

Well done study of the last few years of Trotsky's life (with flashbacks to his experiences before and during the Russian Revolution), and a close following of the conspiracy that ultimately succeeded in murdering him. The inner workings of Trotsky's household are fascinating to watch unfold, par...

from AuntieClio

What I really wanted was a biography of Trotsky's life. This is not that book. Bertrand Patenaude's book is specifically about Trotsky's 4(ish) years in Mexico and his assassination. Richly detailed (sometimes too much so), the reader is taken into the tumultuous life of Trotsky as he tries to fe...

from Michael_Lilly

The author gets lost in background minutia from time to time, but for someone like me who knew next to nothing about Trotsky before reading the novel Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver, and Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens some of the background is necessary. Skip this book and try something else if y...