Joshua Rubenstein is the northeast regional director of Amnesty International USA and a longtime associate at Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. He is the author of Tangled Loyalties: The Life and Times of Ilya Ehrenburg, a masterful biography of this controversial Soviet-Jewish writer and journalist. In addition, Rubenstein is coeditor of The KGB File of Andrei Sakharov and Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, both published by Yale University Press. Stalin's Secret Pogrom received a National Jewish Book Award.
This trim book . . . pulls together all the essentials of the life of Leon Trotsky and the revolution he so significantly shaped into a seamless, intelligent, and wonderfully accessible synopsis. -Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs -- Robert Legvold * Foreign Affairs * In this new, concise biography, Rubenstein offers a more balanced view of Trotsky....There are many reasons to commend this work - among them, Rubenstein's depoliticization of its subject and the book's succinctness and readability. -Peter Ephross, The Forward -- Peter Ephross * The Forward * Joshua Rubenstein has produced a steadily intelligent, insightful biography of one the last century's most alluring intellectual-politicians, a man of astonishing brilliance and no less astonishing rigidities. -Steven J. Zipperstein, author of Imagining Russian Jewry: Memory, History, Identity -- Steven J. Zipperstein As much a myth and a legend as a man, Leon Trotsky is an individual of deep contradictions... Fast-paced and engaging, Rubenstein's brief biography provides a solid introduction to the period and a detailed examination of a man much studied but little understood. -Publishers Weekly * Publishers Weekly * An accessible scholarly account of a man whose life spanned continents, whose charisma was legendary and whose ideas sparked a revolution and its backlash. -Kirkus Reviews * Kirkus Reviews * An exemplary biography... Rubenstein depicts Trotsky as a tragic hero, a complex man whose brilliance and fallibility were inseparable. -Judith Maas, Jewish Advocate -- Judith Maas * Jewish Advocate * Joshua Rubenstein's succinct account of Leon Trotsky's life rescues the Russian radical from a remoteness, positioning him at a useful distance for contemporary readers. -Harvey Blume, ArtsFuse -- Harvey Blume * ArtsFuse * Joshua Rubenstein has told a fascinating story in this book. It is very well documented, with close attention to the sources in several languages, and yet it reads like a novel. -Rabbi Jack Riemer, South Florida Jewish Journal -- Rabbi Jack Riemer * South Florida Jewish Journal *