The Return of History
by Serhii Plokhy
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2023
400 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
An authoritative history of Europe's largest military conflict since World War II, from the New York Times best-selling author of The Gates of Europe.
Despite repeated warnings from the White House, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. Why did Putin start the war—and why has it unfolded in previously unimaginable ways? Ukrainians have resisted a superior military; the West has united, while Russia grows increasingly isolated.
Serhii Plokhy, a leading historian of Ukraine and the Cold War, offers a definitive account of this conflict, its origins, course, and the already apparent and possible future consequences. Though the current war began eight years before the all-out assault—on February 27, 2014, when Russian armed forces seized the building of the Crimean parliament—the roots of this conflict can be traced back even earlier, to post-Soviet tensions and imperial collapse in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Providing a broad historical context and an examination of Ukraine and Russia's ideas and cultures, as well as domestic and international politics, Plokhy reveals that while this new Cold War was not inevitable, it was predictable.
Ukraine, Plokhy argues, has remained central to Russia's idea of itself even as Ukrainians have followed a radically different path. In a new international environment defined by the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the disintegration of the post–Cold War international order, and a resurgence of populist nationalism, Ukraine is now more than ever the most volatile fault line between authoritarianism and democratic Europe.
"Insightful.... Readers aiming to follow the fighting should read the daily news, but for a complete picture, this is the book."
―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Plokhy's narrative is lucid, well-crafted, and judicious...and vividly conveys the war's destruction through Ukrainians' firsthand experiences...The result is an essential account of the conflict that manages to make sense of its obscure and tangled origins." ―Publishers Weekly
"An utterly compelling account, deeply personal, persuasively authoritative, surely the must-read book for this challenging moment."
―Philippe Sands, author of East West Street
"The essential book about the Russia-Ukraine war―superb, accessible and erudite―by the world's chief expert. The must-read work."
―Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History of Humanity
"For those trying to understand the roots of the war in Ukraine, there is no better guide than Serhii Plokhy. It's impossible to make sense of the Russian invasion of 2022 without knowing something of the history―recent and less recent―and the struggle for Ukrainian national identity; this compelling and lucid book illuminates both."
―Lindsey Hilsum, author of In Extremis
This information about The Russo-Ukrainian War was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard and the director of the university's Ukrainian Research Institute. The author of numerous books, including The Last Empire, which received the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book on international relations, and Chernobyl, which was awarded the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction, Plokhy lives in Burlington, Massachusetts.
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