Fascinating and multilayered, The Gates of Europe is the essential guide to understanding not just Ukraine's past but also its future.
Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University and a leading authority on Eastern Europe. His previous books include The Gates of Europe, The Last Empire and Yalta- The Price of Peace.
The most distinguished historian of Ukraine writing in English. . .
Mr Plokhy shows how Ukrainian language, culture and identity
flourished in adversity -- which helps explain why, though they
have only recently achieved a state of their own, Ukrainians are
fighting heroically to defend it
*Economist*
The world's foremost historian of Ukraine. . . the chronicler of a
country on the front lines of a seismic European war
*Financial Times*
Before my first reporting trip to Ukraine, one of my seasoned war
correspondent colleagues had two pieces of advice. First, not to
miss the delicious coffee and pastries you can find in Kyiv.
Second, that it was absolutely necessary to read Serhii Plokhy's
The Gates of Europe. I did, and it unwound 2,500 years of complex,
fascinating and often tragic events, all the way from Herodotus's
accounts of the ancient Scythians to the Maidan protests in Kyiv a
decade ago
*Guardian*
A great place to start reading up on the background to the crisis.
. . learned and considered, but lightly written and leavened by
anecdotes
*Guardian*
Clear and elegant... an indispensable guide to the tragic history
of a great European nation
*Sunday Telegraph*
A fast-moving history, full of prompts and nuggets... a strong
rebuttal of the arrogant assumptions of the Putin court
*The Times*
Admirable... In his elegant and careful exposition of Ukraine's
past, Mr Plokhy has also provided some signposts to the future
*Economist*
An assured and authoritative survey that spans ancient Greek times
to the present day
*Financial Times*
Plokhy's careful, engaging history is a series of stories about a
spectral nation, one that has appeared and disappeared down the
ages... If sense ever prevails, Plokhy's fine book should find its
way to Vladimir Putin's desk, if only to show the imperialist that
Ukraine itself is far from done, and will not be extinguished
*Herald Scotland*
Readers can find no better place to turn than Plokhy's book... He
navigates the subject with grace and aplomb
*Foreign Affairs*
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*
An exemplary account of Europe's least-known large country... one
of the joys of reading it 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*
Complex and nuanced, refreshingly revisionist and lucid, this is a
compelling and outstanding short history of the blood-soaked land
that has so often been the battlefield and breadbasket of
Europe
*Simon Sebag Montefiore*
This is present-minded history at its most urgent. Anyone wanting
to understand why Russia and the West confront each other over the
future of Ukraine will want to read Serhii Plokhy's reasoned,
measured yet passionate account of Ukraine's historic role at the
gates of Europe
*Michael Ignatieff*
For a comprehensive, engaging, and up-to-date history of Ukraine
one could do no better than Serhii Plokhy's aptly titled The Gates
of Europe. 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
*Norman M. Naimark*
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