Trotskys History Of The Russian Revolution - Boxed 3 Volume Set

Revolution is rarely tidy, but here it arrives in a boxed three-volume set, which is about as close as history gets to being house-trained.

Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution is one of the great insider accounts of 1917, written by a man who was not merely observing events from a safe distance, but actively helping to overturn the furniture. This Sphere Books edition, translated by Max Eastman, gives the reader the revolution in full sweep: monarchy collapsing, parties manoeuvring, crowds gathering, soldiers wavering, leaders arguing, and history deciding to accelerate without checking whether anyone was ready.

Trotsky writes with force, intelligence, and the slight disadvantage of being Trotsky. He is brilliant, dramatic, analytical, and entirely aware of the importance of the story he is telling. This is history as explanation, justification, warning, and performance. Nobody could accuse him of being detached, but then detachment was not exactly the mood of Petrograd in 1917.

There is a glorious irony in a revolutionary classic becoming a neat boxed set. The overthrow of an empire, the fall of the Romanovs, the rise of Bolshevism, and the remaking of the twentieth century, all contained tidily enough to sit on a shelf between cookery and gardening if required.

This good boxed three-volume set, as sold by Crappy Old Books, is ideal for readers of Russian history, political history, revolutionary theory, and anyone who likes their historical earthquakes extensively footnoted and spread across several volumes. A substantial set, in every sense.

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