Robert Service (1) (1947–)

Robert Service arrived in Oxford in 1998 and became Professor of Russian History. His Cambridge undergraduate degree was in Russian and ancient Greek; he switched to politics at Essex for his graduate studies before opting for research in history. He went on an exchange scholarship to Leningrad before appointments at Keele University and the London School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

His books and articles, dealing mainly with twentieth-century Russian history, cover economic, social and cultural as well as political aspects. He connects this work with the analysis of contemporary Russia. He broadcasts and writes for the press. He is a frequent visitor to Russia. He likes hill-walking, singing and strumming. His latest book is an account of Russia and the West in the early years of the October Revolution. Continuing an interest in international relations, he is completing an account of the end of the Cold War.

Main publications: The Bolshevik Party in Revolution: A Study in Organisational Change (1979), Lenin: A Political Life (in three volumes: 1986, 1991 and 1995), The Russian Revolution, 1900-1927 (1986; third, revised edition, 1999), A History of Twentieth Century Russia (1997; second, expanded edition appears as A History of Modern Russia, 2001), Lenin: A Biography (2000), Russia: Experiment with a People, From 1991 to the Present (2002), Stalin: A Biography (2004), Comrades. Communism: A World History (2007), Trotsky: A Biography (2009) and Spies and Commissars (2011).

http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/people/servi...