Customer Reviews

Kiev

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.