This major new biography of Leon Trotsky, fittingly published on the centennial of his birth, magnificently captures the qualities of character and intellect that make Trotsky an infinitely captivating figure. A maker of the revolution as well as its brilliant historian, a prolific and superlative writer, a thinker as well as a doer, he had an extraordinary command of rarely compatible talents. Segal's compelling portrayal enhances Trotsky's stature still further in revealing a man delightfully lacking in pretensions and ultimately out of joint with his times but not with himself.