Mariupol 2013-2022 by Hana Josticova – Stories of Mobilization and Resistance – is a fascinating book on narratives and how they create a national identity. She looked at Mariupol and the Donbas region from 2013, pre-Maidan and until russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Mariupol was…
A small town in Ukraine by Bernard Wasserstein – Krakowiec and the storm of history – is the history of a small town, from its establishment in 1423 to 2022. Wasserstein’s family lived there and half of the book is about WWII and the Holocaust,…
Fatal silence by Robert Katz was an interesting book, which I would recommend, but which I awarded only 3 stars. Its subtitle is “the Pope, the Resistance and the German occupation of Rome” and the book was mainly about the resistance. Considering that it starts…
Come to This Court and Cry by Linda Kinstler – How the Holocaust Ends – offers interesting views on pro-war attitudes when it came to Nazi crimes. While researching a well-known case in Latvia regarding the so-called “butcher of Riga,” Herberts Cukurs, Kinstler discovered that…
Night Train to Odesa by Jen Stout – Covering the Human Cost of russia’s War – is one of the many books I read by foreigners going to Ukraine after russia’s full scale invasion. This is different not only because of the natural differences in…
The Russo-Ukrainian war by Serhii Plokhy is the second book I read by him. The first one was The Gates of Europe. I had high expectations from this book and not only it met them, but surpassed them too. This book, at 300 pages (excluding…
A small, stubborn town by Andrew Harding – life, death and defiance in Ukraine – is a book on a town in Ukraine, Voznesensk. Just as I finished reading the book and I was searching for details on Voznesensk, I saw the news published less…
Getting out by Jonathan Campion – the Ukrainian cricket team’s last stand on the front lines of war – is a book I borrowed from the library by chance. I was looking for another book and this stood out because of its title. I had…
The Harvest of Sorrow by Robert Conquest – Soviet Collectivisation and the Terror-Famine – is a classic. I bought it a few months ago and read parts of it. This month I read it cover to cover. What a fantastic book. It is the first…
The Vanquished by Robert Gerwarth – Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923 – is a non-fiction book on European history. While in the west WWI ended on 11 November 1918, which is now commemorated as Remembrance Day in UK, the fighting did…
Stalinist perpetrators on trial by Lynne Viola – Scenes from the Great Terror in Soviet Ukraine – is a fascinating book, well worth reading. The Purges or the Great Terror are well-known. Between 1937 and 1938 over 1.5 million people were arrested and hundreds of…
Communism and Hunger by Andrea Graziosi (editor) – The Ukrainian, Chinese, Kazakh, and Soviet Famines in Comparative Perspective – is a book based on presentations given at a conference from 2014. Each author presented a paper on a different topic, on Holodomor, on the Chinese…
Our Enemies Will Vanish by Yaroslav Trofimov – The russian Invasion and Ukraine’s War of Independence – is a book about the events after russia’s full-scale invasion. I had to review this book today, on the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion. This month also…
The return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis is another well known example of microhistory. This is a great book for historians because of style and research, but also for non-historians because it is a fascinating case and it’s lovely written. The book is…
Montaillou by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie – Cathars and Catholics in a French Village 1294-1324 – translated by Barbara Bray – is another book I read for my studies. First published in 1975 in French and translated into English a few years later, this was…
Not worthy by Lubomyr Luciuk – Walter Duranty’s Pulitzer Prize and the New York Times – is a book published twenty years ago. It was edited by Lubomyr Luciuk, the Director of Research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who called for the stripping…