Ukraine: a history

"Although the new state of Ukraine came into being only in 1991 as one of many formed in the wake of the Revolution of 1989, it was hardly a new country. Yet what the world has generally known of Ukraine seems to be associated primarily with relatively recent tragedies - Chornobyl' in 1986, Babi Yar in 1941, the great famine of 1933, and the pogroms of 1919. But there is more to Ukrainian history than tragedy in the modern era and, indeed, more to Ukraine than Ukrainians.

Until now, most histories of Ukraine have been histories of the Ukrainian people alone. While this book traces in detail the evolution of the Ukrainians, Paul Robert Magocsi attempts to give judicious treatment as well to other peoples and cultures that developed within the borders of Ukraine, including the Crimean Tatars, Poles, Russians, Germans, Jews, Mennonites, Greeks, and Romanians, all of whom form an essential part of Ukraine's history.

A History of Ukraine has been designed as a textbook for use by teachers and students in areas such as history, political science, religious history, geography, and Slavic and East European Studies. Presented in ten sections of roughly five chapters each, it proceeds chronologically from the first millennium before the common era to the declaration of Ukrainian independence in 1991. Each section provides a balanced discussion of political, economic, and cultural developments; each chapter ends with a summary of the significant issues discussed. The whole is complemented by forty-two maps and twenty tables. Featured are sixty-seven 'text inserts' that include excerpts from important documents and contemporary descriptions as well as vivid explanations of specific events, concepts, and historiographic problems. Students will also benefit from the extensive essay on further reading that provides bibliographic direction for each of the sections in the book."--Pub. desc.

The rise and decline of Kievan Rusʹ -- The society and culture of Kievan Rusʹ -- Galicia-Volhynia -- Under Polish and Lithuanian rule -- Social structure and economic change -- Religion and culture -- The formative phase -- The great revolt -- The ruin -- The Hetmanate -- Society, economics, and culture -- Russian and Austrian Imperial rule in Ukraine -- The growth of national consciousness -- Imperial reforms -- Socioeconomic change -- Intelligentsia activism -- Eastern Galicia : a bastion of Ukrainianism -- War and revolution -- The Ukrainian Revolution -- Soviet Ukraine : the innovation twenties -- Soviet Ukraine : the traumatic thirties -- Western Ukraine between the wars -- Ukraine during the Second World War -- Reconstruction and retrenchment -- The Thaw -- Stagnation and attempts at reform -- The immigrants -- The Ukrainian Diaspora -- The New Era -- The troubled transition -- The age of globalization.