The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine

Front Cover
Basic Books, Dec 1, 2015 - History - 432 pages
Ukraine is currently embroiled in a tense battle with Russia to preserve its economic and political independence. But today's conflict is only the latest in a long history of battles over Ukraine's existence as a sovereign nation. As award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues in The Gates of Europe, we must examine Ukraine's past in order to understand its fraught present and likely future.

Situated between Europe, Russia, and the Asian East, Ukraine was shaped by the empires that have used it as a strategic gateway between East and West—from the Romans and Ottomans to the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, all have engaged in global fights for supremacy on Ukrainian soil. Each invading army left a lasting mark on the landscape and on the population, making modern Ukraine an amalgam of competing cultures.

Authoritative and vividly written, The Gates of Europe will be the definitive history of Ukraine for years to come.
 

Contents

CHAPTER 1
3
CHAPTER 2
13
CHAPTER 3
23
CHAPTER 4
31
CHAPTER 5
41
CHAPTER 6
49
PART II
61
CHAPTER 7
63
CHAPTER 18
201
CHAPTER 19
215
CHAPTER 20
229
CHAPTER 21
245
CHAPTER 22
259
CHAPTER 23
277
PART V
289
CHAPTER 24
291

CHAPTER 8
73
CHAPTER 9
85
CHAPTER 10
97
CHAPTER 11
109
CHAPTER 12
119
PART III
131
CHAPTER 13
133
CHAPTER 14
147
CHAPTER 15
161
CHAPTER 16
175
CHAPTER 17
187
PART IV
199
CHAPTER 25
307
CHAPTER 26
323
CHAPTER 27
337
EPILOGUE
347
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
355
HISTORICAL TIMELINE
357
WHOS WHO IN UKRAINIAN HISTORY
367
GLOSSARY
373
FURTHER READING
375
INDEX
381
Copyright

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About the author (2015)

Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard and the director of the university's Ukrainian Research Institute. In June 2013 he was named Walter Channing Cabot Fellow in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He has served on the advisory committees of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard. He also serves on the editorial boards of Russian History, East European Politics and Societies, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, and the Journal of Ukrainian Studies. Plokhy is the author of nine books, including The Last Empire and Yalta, which won the Ukrainian National Women's League of America Book Prize and was shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Foundation Prize.

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