Robert Service is a fellow of the British Academy and of St Antony's College, Oxford, where he is Professor of Russian History; he is also a visiting fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He has written several books, including the highly acclaimed Lenin: A Biography, Russia: Experiment with a People, Stalin: A Biography, Comrades: A History of World Communism, Trotsky: A Biography, which won the 2009 Duff Cooper Prize, and, most recently, Spies and Commissars. He lives in London.
What makes Service's book special is its scholarship. His terrier-like persistence in digging into previously unexcavated archives in Russia, across America and around the internet gives his view of this slice of our recent past a firm documentary foundation ... A magisterial account of a turning point in modern history, whose intellectual rigour and robustness make it unlikely to be bettered. -- Sherard Cowper-Coles Spectator Our leading historian of the Soviet Union ... magisterial. Observer Detailed and clear ... his main strength is his forensic challenge to the cliches and myths on which western triumphalism about the Cold War is based ... Service is an authoritative voice offering a more nuanced view. -- Victor Sebestyen Sunday Times A masterful chronicle about personalities and ideas ... The Cold War ended with the demise of the USSR in December 1991. The great biographer of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky here offers a superb account of how and why this unexpected denouement came about. -- Vladimir Tismaneanu Times Higher Education Supplement Well-written and thought-provoking. -- Christopher Andrew Literary Review An abundance of superbly organized material. -- Mary Dejevsky Independent Absorbingly written, displaying an admirable command of the sources, this book is destined to become a classic of Cold War historical literature. International Affairs