Hello, i am about to begin my research and writing for my dissertation for my final year at university. As you can see i have chosen to focus on Trotsky and his influence on communism. I always struggle finding where to begin, can any body suggest some good reading and also some strong topics i could included in my dissertation to build a good historiographical debate. I have just started reading Robert Services book as a starting block but i need somewhere to go from there. Sorry i have been vague on both topic and content but i truly am at a loss. Thank you.
I would suggest being wary of doing such a popular historical subject if you don't know where to begin and can only suggest a popular biography as your starting point. I wrote on an extremely popular text for my undergrad diss. and got mired down in a centuries old historiography and could find very little new to say. Even so I was very well versed on my topic having studied it for two years.
Research is about finding something new to say, or at least nuancing the current consensus, not simply regurgitating the opinions of historians. Pick something you actually know a fair amount about and can access primary sources (either in translation or in vernacular, you have great resources available with the National Archives in Kew and the British Library). Don't simply look for debates, look for something all these historians seem to have missed or haven't explored to the fullest extent.