Ukraine: A History. 3rd ed.

Myroslav Shkandrij is head of the Department of German and Slavic
Studies at the University of Manitoba and the editor of The Cultural
Renaissance in Ukraine: Polemical Pamphlets, 1925–1926.

Orest Subtelny’s Ukraine: A History is the standard work on the
subject. Now in its third English edition, it has also been reprinted
several times in its Ukrainian translation and is used as an
instructional text in many establishments in Ukraine. In all, more than
750,000 copies of the book have been printed. This latest edition
includes a substantial, newly written chapter on the decade that
followed Ukraine’s independence in 1991. The bibliography, which has
also been updated and improved, covers the various periods of the
millennium of Ukraine’s recorded history and is an excellent reference
source. The book is superbly edited, with well-selected photographs
appearing throughout the book, and a comprehensive name and subject
index.

Subtelny’s account is balanced and comprehensive, tracing the
political, cultural, and socioeconomic developments of the land from the
earliest times. He focuses judiciously on the key issues in each period.
For many years, his was the only book that gave an honest and
enlightening account of the traumatic events of the 20th century: the
nationalist movement, the famine, the experience of the two world wars,
the fate of the diaspora communities. The discussion of these and the
issues they raise is seamlessly woven into the overall narrative.
Different ethnic communities on the territory of Ukraine also receive
due recognition: the contributions of Polish, Russian, and Jewish
communities to Ukrainian history and their relations with the mainstream
Ukrainian community are continually recurring themes.

The book combines broad scholarship and an ability to survey events
with careful and incisive judgments. Further, the text is not
overburdened with footnotes. Enormously readable and eminently
“usable” in many educational contexts, Ukraine: A History is
required reading for anyone interested in the emergence of a Ukrainian
territory, identity, and state.