Context: The current Russia/Ukraine war triggered an interest in why my grandparents came to Canada. Various factoids in the news suggest that there is a very unusual relationship between the countries in that area. I Googled for books about Ukrainian history, and this was a top recommendation.
Interesting factoid: The word Ukraine means borderland in the Russian/Ukrainian languages. This reminds me of things I’ve read about the UK borderland areas and US settlement in Colin Woodwards “American Nations”.
Reid is a journalist that was the Kiev correspondent for the Economist and Daily Telegraph and other magazines and newspapers in the 90’s. The book was first published in 1997 and was revised in 2015. She focuses more on the recent history that she experienced rather than the pre-1900 history that I was interested in.
I found the 20th century history of Ukraine very depressing to read. As a borderland area, it was conquered/colonized by many different “Empires” — Austro-Hungarian, Russian tsarist, Polish, USSR, Hitlerian German, etc. The chapter on Chernobyl and the mismanagement by the Soviets was hard to accept.
Overall, the book is well-written. An interesting mix of anecdotes from her interviews of residents to put a human face on the events.