According to Amazon.com, there are presently in existence 199 biographies of Leon Trotsky—almost a quarter as many as there are of Marilyn Monroe (810). Joshua Rubenstein’s new work, Leon Trotsky: A Revolutionary’s Life, is a specialized one issued by a Yale series called “Jewish Lives,” which is “designed to illuminate the imprint of eminent Jewish figures” on culture, broadly defined. There is no question that genetically speaking, Trotsky was a Jew. But personally and culturally, he emphatically denied any connection with the Jewish people. Quoting from my book Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime:
