Full name: Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine

Author: Anna Reid Year: 1997 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Non Fiction, Travel Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780813337920 9780465055890 0813337925

Borderland tells the story of Ukraine. A thousand years ago it was the center of the first great Slav civilization, Kievan Rus. In 1240, the Mongols invaded from the east, and for the next seven centureies, Ukraine was split between warring neighbors: Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Austrians, and Tatars. Again and again, borderland turned into battlefield: during the Cossack risings of the seventeenth century, Russia's wars with Sweden in the eighteenth, the Civil War of 1918-1920, and under Nazi occupation. Ukraine finally won independence in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bigger than France and a populous as Britain, it has the potential to become one of the most powerful states in Europe.In this finely written and penetrating book, Anna Reid combines research and her own experiences to chart Ukraine's tragic past. Talking to peasants and politicians, rabbis and racketeers, dissidents and paramilitaries, survivors of Stalin's famine and of Nazi labor camps, she reveals the layers of myth and propaganda that wrap this divided land. From the Polish churches of Lviv to the coal mines of the Russian-speaking Donbass, from the Galician shtetlech to the Tatar shantytowns of Crimea, the book explores Ukraine's struggle to build itself a national identity, and identity that faces up to a bloody past, and embraces all the peoples within its borders. Similar books: The Gates of Europe by S. M. Plokhy The Ukrainians by Andrew Wilson Ukraine by Orest Subtelny Civilization by Roger Osborne Catastrophe by David Keys A Brief History of the Western World by Thomas H. Greer The Evolution of Civilizations by Carroll Quigley 1492 by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto In Europe by Geert Mak A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horwitz South with Endurance by Frank Hurley Foreign Devils on the Silk Road by Peter Hopkirk The Fourth Part of the World by Toby Lester Amsterdam by Russell Shorto Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress by Jan Morris Pax Britannica by Jan Morris The Discovery of France by Graham Robb Venice by Thomas F. Madden Going Back to Bisbee by Richard Shelton Goodnight, Mister Lenin by Tiziano Terzani