Trotsky - by Bertrand M Patenaude (Paperback)

About the Book

Patenaude tells the dramatic story of Leon Trotsky's final years in exile in Mexico, and the light they shed on one of the most captivating and controversial figures in modern history.

Book Synopsis

In Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary, Stanford University lecturer Bertrand M. Patenaude tells the dramatic story of Leon Trotsky's final years in exile in Mexico. Shedding new light on Trotsky's tumultuous friendship with painter Diego Rivera, his affair with Rivera's wife Frida Kahlo, and his torment as his family and comrades become victims of the Great Terror, Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary brilliantly illuminates the fateful and dramatic life of one of history's most famous yet elusive figures.

From the Back Cover

Few political figures of the twentieth century have aroused as much passion, controversy, and curiosity as Leon Trotsky. His role in history--his epic rise and fall, his fiery persona, his violent end in Mexico in August 1940--holds a fascination that transcends the history of the Russian Revolution. Bertrand M. Patenaude masterfully interweaves the story of Trotsky's final years with flashbacks to pivotal episodes in his career as a young Marxist, revolutionary hero, Red Army chief, Bolshevik leader, outcast from Stalin's USSR, and ultimately heretic of the Kremlin, targeted for assassination by its secret police. Gripping, tragic, and based on extensive firsthand research, Trotsky brilliantly illuminates the fateful and dramatic life of one of history's most captivating and important figures.

Review Quotes

"This book deepens and enhances the sense of tragedy that always attends contemplation of 'the Old Man' and his last struggle." - Christopher Hitchens
"Bertrand Patenaude tells a masterly story, of a brilliant, cornered man and, along the way, of a misguided century." - The Wall Street Journal
"Gripping, cinematic. . . . No matter what your political orientation, if you believe--or ever did believe--in the potential betterment of humanity, then you've got something to learn from the strange and tragic story of Leon Trotsky. It's a tale of pride and power and political failure, of genius turned to the service of dogged, dogmatic conviction, of a supremely intelligent man who destroyed others in the name of a cause that then destroyed him." - Andrew O'Hehir, Salon
"A lively and finely detailed description of Trotsky's household." - Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"An excellent account of Trotsky's final months. Particularly impressive is the way he interweaves episodes from Trotsky's past into the account of his final days to give the story context and dimension." - The Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"A captivating account. . . . Patenaude paints a vivid portrait of Trotsky, a flamboyant, Westernized intellectual; his stormy relations with his equally flamboyant Mexican champion (and later enemy), artist Diego Rivera; his dealings with his own largely American supporters; and the relentless efforts of Stalin's GPU to kill him. This is a dramatic, event-filled portrait of a turbulent, half forgotten era." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Trotsky was no saint, but his last years in Mexico make for a good thriller. Stalin and his henchmen were after him and before successfully killing Trotsky with an ice pick to the head, there were several dramatic attempts. In addition, the author follows Trotsky's friendship with artist Diego Rivera--and their falling out--and his affair with Rivera's artist wife Frida Kahlo." - The New York Post
"Excellent, exciting. . . . Trotsky charts, with novelistic flair and in archival detail, the progress of the plot that culminated in Trotsky being killed with an ice axe in 1940." - Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Sunday Telegraph
"An absorbing reconstruction of Trotsky's last years in Mexico. . . . Patenaude's hyrbrid history and detective story grips from start to finish. With rare narrative verve, he chronicles the last years of a revolutionary's life, with its sexual jealousies, paranoia, and finally murder." - Ian Thomson, The Sunday Times
"Gripping. . . . Patenaude has created both a compelling biography of the revolutionary leader and a thrilling account of the violent world of international socialist politics in the 1930s. . . . Patenaude's Trotsky is a sympathetic figure, with extraordinary capacities as an orator and for motivating his followers. He also, however, amply exposes Trotsky's flaws, which makes the book an engaging character study of a failed leader. . . . While he offers trenchant psychological understanding and perceptive historical observations, Patenaude has a light touch. Trotsky is a captivating book that captures a complex and contradictory character and the world he had created around him." - The Financial Times
"Bertrand Patenaude's Trotsky is an epic character: fiery, vain, contentious, exacting, intellectually lively, ideologically blinded, seductive, even sexually aggressive--and a man keenly aware that the inherent tragedy behind human existence overshadows the petty mishaps of politics, assassination included." - --Ken Kalfus
"This is an extraordinary, gripping piece of history that gets closer to Trotsky's essential character than any of the vast tomes devoted to him in the past. Perhaps most extraordinary is the page-turning narrative drive which keeps the reader enthralled despite knowing how the story ends. Don't miss it." - --Misha Glenny
"It is a tribute to Bertrand Patenaude's narrative skill that although we always know how his book is going to end, it is none the less readable and utterly gripping. . . . The pace and tension are worthy of a Hollywood thriller." - Dominic Sandbrook, The Daily Telegraph
"A haunting and dramatic reconstruction of Trotsky's life and death in exile. The detail is fascinating, almost voyeuristic." - Richard Overy, Literary Review
"Gripping. . . . Patenaude has created both a compelling biography of the revolutionary leader and a thrilling account of the violent world of international socialist politics in the 1930s." - The Financial Times
"Fascinating. . . . A masterly account. . . . Patenaude applies his expert knowledge of early Soviet history in narrating the story of Leon Trotsky's final years in exile in Mexico." - Library Journal
"Well researched and vividly told." - Robert Service, The Guardian
"A captivating account. . . . Patenaude paints a vivid portrait of Trotsky, a flamboyant, Westernized intellectual. . . . This is a dramatic, event-filled portrait of a turbulent, half- forgotten era." - --Publishers Weekly (starred review)