Borderland Paperback – Big Book, June 9, 2015

A good history, journalistic rather than academic. I highly recommend it as a primer on the background of current events.

A lot of the book is dedicated to the authors impressions of traveling through Ukraine in 1993 right after the collapse of the Soviet Union and Ukraine’s independence. I can see that this person is trying to draw another parallel perhaps but it makes the book unhelpful. She will dedicate pages to describing the poorest state of her hotel room and more of what it was to travel like at the time. Every single chapter starts with pages describing yet another small town in Ukraine and a bad train experience or something else that’s irrelevant today, 30 years later. It’s totally fine to do if the book was called “traveling through Ukraine in 1993” But it’s starting to get overbearing and irrelevant for a book that aims to be a journey through the history of Ukraine.BUT! It is a lot more interesting and readable than a dry history book.

Anna Reid does a splendid job of presenting a thorough history of this fascinating land, coupled with her own personal knowledge of living in Ukraine. This second edition adds chapters bringing that history up to the taking of Crimea. Borderland provides an excellent background for understanding the current war with Russia/Putin. Well written and an informative read.

The history of Ukraine is wonderfully presented. Read this book and you will see the character of the second and third generation Ukrainians who are fighting today, April 11, 2022.

Borderland is a very well-researched account of Ukraine's very complex history. In several places, the prose draws the reader into the author's experience of her time in Ukraine conducting her research in interesting ways. However, the parts of the book that delve deeply into the present nation's disjointed and constantly changing territorial governance over past centuries can be confusing, and not for the feint of heart. But if you want to better understand why Russia believes Ukraine to be part of its own territory, and the varied attitudes of modern Ukrainians about their cultural heritage, you will find answers in this book.

It was emotionally hard to comprehend the numbers and overwhelming to realize the pain experienced by so many due to evilness and hate of others.

I bought this book a few days after the Russian invasion to Ukraine because I realized that I knew very little about this country. However, I had a hard time trying to read it. The author's writing can be difficult to follow at times with vague references and the use of Ukraine (Russian?) terms that were never explained. Sometimes she does a good job and other times I had no idea what she was trying to say. I got the impression that she cut and pasted a lot. On the contrary Chapter 10 is quite good, and it gives a good description of the situation during the 90s. The added new chapters are readable too. It's curious that in this age of electronic printing, the format of the first edition of the book is quite different to the additional chapters added at the end in the second edition. I am afraid I do not recommend this book. If you want to read the history of Ukraine, I strongly recommend "The Gates of Europe" by Plokhy.

Love this books, the author spelled names and landmarks in Ukrainian pronunciation not Russian.

It is a concise, but comprehensive coverage of the Ukrainian history. Unbiased, with interviews and firsthand experience.Very touching.In my view this book can be just enough to understand what is going on in Ukraine or use it to expand one's knowledge further.I wish it had a continuation to the modern day events. But it is not excluded that the author will add to it.

A must read for anybody interested in the Ukraine, Anne apple aim has a talent to demonstrate the very complicated past of this country. And she is fair enough to portray the Ukrainians not as saints but instead indicatives their involvement in the many fold programs. I can only invite people to read this book.

This is a fascinating and also rather depressing history of Ukraine. At the time of my writing this review, the Russian invasion of the country is just over a week old, and sadly represents just the latest in a many centuries long history of war, massacre and disaster, for much of which time the Ukrainians have not had their own state, but been part of Russian, Polish, Lithuanian or Austro-Hungarian states or empires. This is a book of two (uneven) halves, written during the author's various sojourns in the capital Kyiv. This is a 1000 year history of war and violence, from the founding of the Kievan Russ state and its historic decision to adopt Byzantine Christianity, separating future Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians from their Polish Catholics to the west; Islam was also an option but Prince Volodomyr liked pork and wine! It is a history involving Mongols, Cossacks, Poles, Jews and many others in a colourful and violent interplay of nations and ethnic groups.These first ten chapters were written in the mid 90s, just a few years after independence from the Soviet Union, which came suddenly after the failure of the August 1991 coup attempt again Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Despite a bumpy start to independence, the author is fairly upbeat at the end of this section that Ukraine may grow along a path towards being a prosperous and significant mainstream European country. The book was republished in 2015 with a more downbeat assessment and four extra chapters on the events of the Orange Revolution of 2005 and the 2014 Russian invasion of the Crimea and the Donbass area of Eastern Ukraine. It does indeed make you realise that Ukrainians have had among the bloodiest history of any national ethnic group in Europe over the longest period of time and in the 20th century for example suffered hideously not only during the second world war (as of course did the Russians) but also in the Great Hunger (Holodomor) of the early 1930s, Stalin's state-inspired famine when the Soviet Union was exporting grain to pay debts at the expense of millions starving mostly in Ukraine.At the end, the author reminds us that "back in the 1990s, I closed the original edition of this book with the hope that Ukrainians were set for a happier future, and the observation that ‘after a thousand years of one of the bloodiest histories in the world, they surely deserve it’. It’s truer than ever". Indeed, in the most recent years since the Maidan Square uprising of 2014, the central and western parts of Ukraine at least have matured and bear many hallmarks of a modern European country - which is probably why current events seem all the more shocking to us in Britain. I wonder if the author will write a third edition - sadly it would be likely to contain as much grim drama as the first two editions.

Es una visión muy pro ucraniana de la historia, lo cual es loable después de leer ciertas anécdotas de la autora en el país. La mitad del libro trata sobre la historia más reciente, me hubiese gustado ahondar más en la historia antigua, pero en cualquier caso es un buen libro, y bien escrito. Edición paperback. Lo recomiendo.

This reminds me of nothing so much as the old James/Jan Morris books. It is a very well-written history of Ukraine described in colorful chunks relating to areas of the country which the author visits. If this sounds confusing, it is not, but instead gives a wonderful overall view of Ukraine's story, beautifully presented and easy to remember because of its various associations with places. An original and successful idea. Often funny, and filled with interesting & sympathetic characters. Although first written in 1991, the new second part takes us up to 2014. It is all you need to know as background to the terrible events going on today. Easy to digest and somehow comforting: the Ukrainians have always been tough nuts and one can trust Putler's cruelty will not change that.Glory to Ukraine!