Isaac Deutscher

Isaac Deutscher
Born(1907-04-03)3 April 1907
Chrzanów, Galicia, Austria-Hungary
Died19 August 1967(1967-08-19) (aged 60)
Rome, Italy
NationalityPolish
CitizenshipBritish (from 1949)
Occupation(s)Historian, biographer
Known forStudies in Soviet history; biographies of Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin
SpouseTamara Deutscher

Isaac Deutscher (Polish: Izaak Deutscher; 3 April 1907 – 19 August 1967) was a Polish Marxist writer, journalist and political activist who moved to the United Kingdom before the outbreak of World War II. He is best known as a biographer of Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin and as a commentator on Soviet affairs.

His scholarly biographies of Trotsky and Stalin have received widespread acclaim,[1][2][3][4]with several reviewers ranking his three-volume Prophet trilogy among the greatest of political biographies.[5][6][7] However, some criticism has been directed at his overly sympathetic tone for the subject matter.[8][9] His three-volume biography of Trotsky was also highly influential among the British New Left in the 1960s and 1970s.[10]

  1. ^ Evans, Richard J. (7 February 2019). Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History. Little, Brown Book Group. pp. 200–500. ISBN 978-1-4087-0742-5.
  2. ^ Hollinger, David A. (14 April 2006). The Humanities and the Dynamics of Inclusion Since World War II. JHU Press. p. 335. ISBN 978-0-8018-8390-3.
  3. ^ Ali, Tariq (31 October 2009). "The life and death of Trotsky". The Guardian.
  4. ^ Hill, Christopher (1960). "Review of The Prophet Unarmed. Trotsky: 1921-1929". Soviet Studies. 11 (3): 317–323. doi:10.1080/09668136008410211. ISSN 0038-5859. JSTOR 148915.
  5. ^ Davidson, Rjurik (27 November 2012). "On rereading Isaac Deutscher". Overland Literary Journal.
  6. ^ Greene, Graham. "The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky - Review section".
  7. ^ McNeal, Robert H. (1965). "The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 1929–1940 by Isaac Deutscher (review)". The Canadian Historical Review. 46 (1): 79–81. doi:10.3138/chr-046-04-br35. ISSN 1710-1093.
  8. ^ Skilling, H. Gordon (1964). "Review of The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky: 1929-1940". The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue canadienne d'Economique et de Science politique. 30 (3): 472–474. doi:10.2307/139728. ISSN 0315-4890. JSTOR 139728.
  9. ^ Meyer, Alfred G. (June 1960). "The Prophet Unarmed. By Isaac Deutscher. (New York: Oxford University Press. 1959. Pp. xii, 490. $9.50.)". American Political Science Review. 54 (2): 509–510. doi:10.2307/1978320. ISSN 0003-0554. JSTOR 1978320.
  10. ^ Neil Davidson, "The prophet, his biographer and the watchtower" Archived 6 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine, International Socialism 104, 2004.