I am currently looking at a bunch of books for a project I need to do. I need to find two books, monographs (peer reviewed!), about the same topic but from different perspectives.
The two analysis types I want to compare are Queer and Marxist historiographies. While I was juggling a bunch of topics I settled on the Russian Revolution because I found this book:
Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent by Dan Healey
Clearly it fits my Queer analysis and all other criteria. I have not read it yet but the reviews make it seem good. The problem I am facing now is finding a Marxist historiography of the Russian Revolution, which you’d think would be easy but for some reason I cannot find a proper work. I did see Walter Rodney’s * The Russian Revolution: A View from the Third World* but I do not know if it is peer reviewed, and the publisher might disqualify it from being right for my project (Dan Healey’s book is published by University of Chicago Press). I don’t think it’s a bad book but I am certain my professor would disapprove. While I am not completely locked in to choosing a book from a historian I would prefer it as at my school there is a belief in the “supremacy of the historian” if that makes sense.
So my question is, is there a Marxist historiography of the Russia Revolution in book form? And if you are aware of Rodney’s book being peer reviewed I would appreciate the insight. My school’s library is useless and Reddit has not helped either (they keep giving Trotsky and 10 Days that Shook the World, these are fine and all but not for my project).
I’ll be honest, Trotsky’s massive tome (I think it’s over 900 pages) on the Revolution is actually pretty decent and is surprisingly free (for the most part) of his typical brain worms.
It’s a work I am willing to read but I don’t know if it’s good for the project. Is it peer reviewed? Also 900 pages is a lot to take on for a paper thats due mid December 😔
It was written by Trotsky so I don’t think the book itself was ever peer reviewed, and I don’t think Trotsky set out to write an academic book. That said, I do believe that it’s a source respected by historians. There’s also Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book on the Revolution. She’s an actual bourgeois historian but was a leading light among the “reform school”, i.e. Sovietologists that debunked the “totalitarian school” that tried to equate the USSR with Nazi Germany.
I was actually looking at Fitzpatrick as she was recommended here at some point (post for a while back) and even though I would have to change my analysis type from Marxist to reformist/social I think I am going to go with her. The book is not that long and gives an overview of the revolution so I think it’ll be good. Thank you for bringing it up and engaging with my post.