Ukraine: Birth of a Modern Nation (ISBN 0195305469)

A good introduction to Ukrainian history in English:
With Ukraine - Birth of a modern nation, Serhy Yekelchyk has written an up to date, balanced, complete and yet compact history of Ukraine for the English speaking reader. If you want an up to date introduction to Ukrainian history and society, this is a good choice. Unlike the other standard works on Ukrainian history in English, it includes the period leading up to and following the 2004 orange revelution. It also gives the full picture in a compact manner - a feature that many who needs an introduction to Ukrainian history will appreciate. That said, I will compare Yekelchyk's book, with other available history books on Ukraine avaiable in English, to explain why I have given it 4 instead of 5 stars. Except for the period leading up to and following the orange revelution, that is not included in The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, Second edition (2002) by Andrew Wilson; Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine (1997) by Anna Reid and Ukraine: A History by Orest Subtelny (2000), there is not much new in Yekelchyk's book. If you have allready read any of those books, I therefore recommend a book on the Orange revelution, rather than more or less repeating what you have allready read. Andrew Wilson's approach of digging a bit deeper into curtain subjects, makes theese books more alive and interesting to read than Yekelchyk's approach that strictly sticks to the timeline. In addition to give more information about central subjects you want to learn more about, Wilson's appraoch makes it easier to skip a subject that is not necesary to you. Ukrainian religion and mytologies of early Ukrainian civilization are good examples of such subjects that is great to choose if you want to dig into or not. Anna Reid's anechdotical introductions to the different periods and areas of Ukraine, curtainly makes better litterature than Yekechyk not very colorful style. If a traditional history book is what you seek though, Wilson and Yevchuk will be more in accordance with what you seek than Reid. If you want more information than Wilson or Yevchuk provides - check out Subtelny's 800 pages Ukraine: a history. One imperative question Yevchuk in my view fails to adress and answer, is why the economic perfomance of Ukraine has been so poor, compared to other former Soviet republics - both authorian and democratic (for instance Lithaunia and Belarus) and how it can be that you have to look to former Republics hit by war, collapse or both (for instance Georgia and Moldova) to find as poor economic measures as in Ukraine. Look to Verena Fritz' Statebuilding, in order to get a better understandning on how Ukrainian politics has created this mainly self-indulged pain. As Wilson, Yevchuk includes a lot of notes, both in English and Ukrainian/Russian as well as a comprehensive suggested further reading mainly in English. One final pice of advice. If you on this or other books of Ukrainian history finds single reviewers who has totally different views than the other reviewers - views that you find it difficult to fit with other reviews, you might want to check if the reviewer is a member of the Ukrainian Diaspora, especially Nothern American Diaspora. They often tend to have very unbalanced views on Ukrainian history and I would not give their views to much weight when it comes to how non-diaspora readers will experience the book.