In Defense of Leon Trotsky (second edition)

This work contains a devastating refutation of biographies of Trotsky published in recent years by three British historians: Ian Thatcher, Geoffrey Swain and Robert Service. Through a marshaling of facts and detailed analysis, North explains that these works continue the campaign of historical falsification against Trotsky first initiated by the Stalinist bureaucracy in the 1920s. In particular, North's refutation of Service's biography has, in the words of Germany historian Hermann Weber, exposed Service as a one who "deals in lies, falsifications of history, dubious references and even anti-semitic prejudices."

The significantly expanded edition contains a new foreword, four new chapters and two appendices. The additional material includes three lectures for German audiences in Berlin, Leipzig and Mainz, written as answers to apologists for Service's biography. The fourth chapter, an essay on the 70th anniversary of the assassination of Trotsky, is a paper that was delivered at the 2010 conference of the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies.