The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine

by Serhii Plokhy

Overview

"As Ukraine is embroiled in an ongoing struggle with Russia to preserve its territorial integrity and political independence, celebrated historian Serhii Plokhy explains that today's crisis is a case of history repeating itself: the Ukrainian conflict is only the latest in a long history of turmoil over Ukraine's sovereignty ... This revised edition contains new material that brings this definitive history up to the present, from the election of Volodymyr Zelensky to the role of Ukraine in Trump's impeachment. As Ukraine once again finds itself at the center of global attention, Plokhy brings its history to vivid life as he connects the nation's past with its present and future"--

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541675643
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	05/25/2021
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard and the director of the university’s Ukrainian Research Institute. The author of numerous books, including the award-winning The Last Empire, for which he received the Lionel Gelber Prize, and Chernobyl, the recipient of the Baillie Gifford Prize, Plokhy lives in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

I. ON THE PONTIC FRONTIER
1. The Edugeo f the World
2. The Advent of the Slavs
3. Vikings on the Dnieper
4. Byzantium North
5. The Keys to Kyiv
6. Pax Mongolica

II. EAST MEETS WEST
7. The Making of Ukraine
8. The Cossacks
9. Eastern Reformation
10. The Great Revolt
11. The Partitions
12. The Verdict of Poltava

III. BETWEEN THE EMPIRES
13. The New Frontiers
14. The Books of the Genesis
15. The Porous Border
16. On the Move
17. The Unfinished Revolution

IV. THE WARS OF THE WORLD
18. The Birth of a Nation
19. A Shattered Dream
20. Communism and Nationalism
21. Stalin's Fortress
22. Hitler's Lebensraum
23. The Victors

V. THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE
24. The Second Soviet Republic
25. Good Bye, Lenin!
26. The Independence Square
27. The Price of Freedom

Epilogue: The Meanings of History

Editorial Reviews

"[An] exemplary account of Europe's least-known large country... one of the joys of reading the The Gates of Europe is that what might seem a dense account of distant events involving unfamiliar places and people is leavened by aphorism and anecdote."—Wall Street Journal

"An assured and authoritative survey that spans ancient Greek times to the present day."—Financial Times

"Readers can find no better place to turn than Plokhy's new book.... Plokhy navigates the subject with grace and aplomb."—Foreign Affairs

"Elegantly written."—New York Review of Books

"The timeframe and subjects covered here are extraordinary...students, academics, and readers with a general knowledge of Ukraine will appreciate. Alternatively, chapters can be read independently, allowing those with a strong interest in the subject to focus on a specific era of Ukraine's history."—Library Journal

"Injecting appropriate nuance and complexity into a single-volume overview of 2,000 years of Ukrainian history is no small task, but Plokhy approaches this charge with dexterity and skill.... Plokhy's work serves as a welcome introduction to Ukraine's ethnic and national history."—Publishers Weekly

"[A] concise, highly readable history of Ukraine...a lively narrative peopled with a colorful cast of Norse and Mongol marauders, free-booting Cossacks, kings, conquerors and dictators, and conflicted 19th century intellectuals who believed fervently in a Ukrainian cultural identity but were fatally divided as to how that cultural identity could evolve into national entity."—Washington Times

"A masterly surveyor of Ukrainian history."—Independent (UK)

"A sympathetic survey of the history of Ukraine along the East-West divide, from ancient divisions to present turmoil.... A straightforward, useful work that looks frankly at Ukraine's ongoing "price of freedom" against the rapacious, destabilizing force of Russia."—Kirkus Reviews

"[An] admirable new history.... In his elegant and careful exposition of Ukraine's past, Mr. Plokhy has also provided some signposts to the future."—Economist

From the Publisher

Narrator Ralph Lister has an impressively large British-accented voice that leads listeners through the text with insistence.”

AudioFile

A comprehensive, unbiased history.”

Winnipeg Free Press (Canada)

No one can understand today’s sad, tangled confrontation over Ukraine without some knowledge of the complex, crosscutting influences that have shaped eastern Europe over the millennia. For that history, readers can find no better place to turn than Plokhy.”

Foreign Affairs

Plokhy’s authoritative study will be of great value to scholars, students, policy-makers, and the informed public alike in making sense of the contemporary Ukrainian imbroglio.”

Stanford University Norman M. Naimark

2015-09-02
A sympathetic survey of the history of Ukraine along the East-West divide, from ancient divisions to present turmoil. That the Ukrainian national anthem begins with the words "Ukraine has not yet perished" is a telling depiction of the country's riven history, as patiently, chronologically delineated by Plokhy (Ukrainian History/Harvard Univ.; The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union, 2014, etc.). The author balances a sense of the diversity and richness of the Ukrainian heritage—the remarkable comingling of early nomads and barbaric invaders through the lands north of the Black Sea—with the later appropriation by Russia. The early migrants who stayed were the Slavs, whose tribes settled along the rivers Dnieper, Dniester, and others and formed the predecessors of today's Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians. The Vikings named the land Rus', giving way to a new relationship with its southern neighbor, the Byzantium capital, Constantinople, and beginning the long process of embracing Christianization. Political consolidation from the 10th to the mid-13th centuries was shattered by the Mongolian invasion in 1240, which underscored for the first time the tension between choosing the East (Byzantium) or the West (the pope). With the rise of princely kingdoms, Plokhy emphasizes the significance of the Cossack raids in the 16th century, leading to an alliance with Muscovy princes in 1654, a watershed moment that would henceforth see the division of Ukraine along the Dnieper between Muscovy and Poland. The rise of Ukrainian nationalism grew in the 19th century, and the author explores the industrial age and its concomitant revolutions, pogroms, dictators, and world wars. The Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in 1986 underscored discontent with Moscow. This awakening of national sentiment would snowball over the years until independence was officially established on Dec. 1, 1991. Plokhy also includes a helpful historical timeline from 45,000 B.C.E. and a "Who's Who in Ukrainian History." A straightforward, useful work that looks frankly at Ukraine's ongoing "price of freedom" against the rapacious, destabilizing force of Russia.

Kirkus Reviews