Kiev [Paperback]

Michael F. Hamm (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 1995 | ISBN-10: 0691025851 | ISBN-13: 978-0691025858

In a fascinating "urban biography," Michael Hamm tells the story of one of Europe's most diverse cities and its distinctive mix of Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, and Jewish inhabitants. A splendid urban center in medieval times, Kiev became a major metropolis in late Imperial Russia, and is now the capital of independent Ukraine. After a concise account of Kiev's early history, Hamm focuses on the city's dramatic growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first historian to analyze how each of Kiev's ethnic groups contributed to the vitality of the city's culture, he also examines the violent conflicts that developed among them. In vivid detail, he shows why Kiev came to be known for its "abundance of revolutionaries" and its anti-Semitic violence.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Now the capital of independent Ukraine, Kiev has had a long and varied history. The center of Russian national development during medieval times (Kievan Rus), it was one of the great European cities until the Mongol juggernaut of A.D. 1240 reduced it to obscure backwater status for almost 600 years. The author (history, Centre Coll., Kentucky) carefully examines those forces that prompted its 19th-century renaissance, e.g., a geographical predisposition to become a major agricultural and communications center. He also explores such topics as Kiev's extraordinary ethnic diversity, its social and cultural resources, and its role in an emerging revolutionary tradition. The heavy use of statistics and general avoidance of the dramatic clearly circumscribe the book's potential audience, but as the first "biography" of Kiev readily available in English, this should be added to most academic collections.
- Mark R. Yerburgh, Fern Ridge Community Lib., Veneta, Ore.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

This carefully detailed account reveals another side of the city's history.... [It] helps to put present events in context, showing that at least one of the 'new' nationalisms in the former Soviet Union has old and very deep roots. -- Anne Applebaum, The Times

Compelling reading.... Hamm's study of Kiev is a finely honed work. It conveys ... a sense of place, a feel for a city undergoing rapid, often profoundly unsettling change. -- James H. Bater, Russian Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (December 22, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691025851
• ISBN-13: 978-0691025858
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,155,295 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Penetrating scholarship. Fascinating history., April 27, 2000

By 

Jon L. Albee "Faulkner Wannabe" (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Kiev (Paperback)

I love to see Americans write European history. Not so much for the reason that we can't do it well as much for the reason that too often we refuse to do it well. In an age of American history scholarship dominated by revisionism, politically correct relativism, and otherwise trendy arcane trash, this brilliant analysis is like fine wine after years of Budweiser. Hamm chooses a national/ethnic context in which to tell the story of how these various peoples transformed Kiev from a forgotten backwater to the cosmopolitan capital of Ukraine. All of this took place in the matter of about 100 years--a blip on the radar screen of Kievan history. But what a century! Poles, Jews, Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks, the Decembrists, art, education, music, literature, commerce, war, pogroms, conflagration, disease, and revolution. It's all here, told in the perfect combination of lucidity and attention to detail as to both fascinate and instruct. Isn't every great work of history supposed to do that? I know I've come across something special when I feel like I've actually lived through a particular history after reading it. We all become residents of Kiev here. One thing that prospective readers should note: Hamm likes numbers. The book is full of statistics, but it never completely relies on them. The author always uses numbers to illustrate his point, but he never tells the story itself with numbers. Though the topic may seem to be a bit esoteric, Hamm's thesis suggests that we should consider understanding urban history as a history of people rather than of institutions and infrastructure. Wonderful stuff, even if you have no interest in Ukraine.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Flawed from the beginning, July 7, 2006

By 

SurveyorOfAllThings - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kiev (Paperback)

Hamm makes the cardinal sin when writing about Ukrainian history; he thinks Rus' and Russian are interchangable. These terms refer to two different peoples of a particular region. Kyivan Rus' refers to the Rusin people (sitll in existence today found primarily in far western Ukraine in the Carpathian mountains), not to be confused with the Russian people. Conventional Ukrainian history suggests that from the Kyivan Rus' other tribes split off some going east, some west, north and south. The tribe going east, which later formed Moscovy, came to be known as Russians. Ukrainian history, in general, is difficult to disern as a result of many decades of imposed Russian superiority which tends to cloud the scholarship on medievel Ukrainian and Russian history. Hence, we find books such as this one that adhears to the missinformation provided by Russian historians still during the time of the Soviet Union. Readers can find more reliable and historically accurate accounts on various subjects of Ukrainian history, including the Kyivan Rus', by reading authors such as, Orest Subtelny, Andrew Wilson, Paul Robert Mogocsi, Michael Hrushevsky, etc.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great book, February 20, 2008

By 

D. L. Dickerson "Hobbit" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kiev (Paperback)

If you are looking for a book that gives you the Moscow Rus view of history, this book will not make you very happy. Also if you are looking looking for a Ukraine revisionist history view, where northern towns of the old Kyiv Rus like for example Jaroslavl (founded the Kyiv ruler Jaroslav the wise!) were some how not really Rus, you will hate this book.

I found it a fine history of Kyiv/Keiv. I recommend this as a balanced clear history. Just remember it does not try to give the revisionist view nor the imperial Moscow view.