---
product_id: 328793197
title: "The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine"
price: "VT7754"
currency: VUV
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 9
url: https://www.desertcart.vu/products/328793197-the-gates-of-europe-a-history-of-ukraine
store_origin: VU
region: Vanuatu
---

# The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine

**Price:** VT7754
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine
- **How much does it cost?** VT7754 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.vu](https://www.desertcart.vu/products/328793197-the-gates-of-europe-a-history-of-ukraine)

## Best For

- Customers looking for quality international products

## Why This Product

- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Description

The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine [Plokhy, Serhii] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine

Review: Comprehensive, interesting book about Ukrainian history - This book comprehensively goes through history, with great detail and organization. The stories are written in such a way that it comes to life. As a result, this book became one of my reference books for Ukrainian history. The maps appendices - Historical Timeline, Who's Who in Ukrainian History, Glossary, and Further Reading - are also helpful. (For the next edition may I suggest including a current map of Ukraine with each major city labeled?) I have been recommending this book to anyone interested in Ukrainian and European history.
Review: Brilliant and informative!!! - This is probably the most informative and comprehensive history of Ukraine I've ever read! It really helps put the current situation into context, and helps you realize just how much Ukraine has been dominated by major foreign powers. Very rarely in its history was Ukraine a fully independent state; it was most often a vassal of other powers such as the Byzantine Empire, the Mongols, the Polish nations, and eventually the Russian (Muscovite) Empire. However, it had long dreamed of independence and, despite what some major politicians and pundits are claiming, Ukrainians are their own unique people group, not just a bunch of Russians who got lost and picked up an accent. Fair warning, though: with the way this book is written, it's easy to get bogged down in details, especially in the chapters chronicling the Bolshevik Revolution. It may help to draw an outline/overview when reading this book to keep the bigger picture in context.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #66,050 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #43 in Russian History (Books) #188 in European History (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars (2,519) |
| Dimensions  | 5.95 x 1.45 x 9.05 inches |
| Edition  | 1st |
| ISBN-10  | 1541675649 |
| ISBN-13  | 978-1541675643 |
| Item Weight  | 15.2 ounces |
| Language  | English |
| Print length  | 448 pages |
| Publication date  | May 25, 2021 |
| Publisher  | Basic Books |

## Images

![The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71HjR41XI9L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Comprehensive, interesting book about Ukrainian history
*by B***C on November 17, 2020*

This book comprehensively goes through history, with great detail and organization. The stories are written in such a way that it comes to life. As a result, this book became one of my reference books for Ukrainian history. The maps appendices - Historical Timeline, Who's Who in Ukrainian History, Glossary, and Further Reading - are also helpful. (For the next edition may I suggest including a current map of Ukraine with each major city labeled?) I have been recommending this book to anyone interested in Ukrainian and European history.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Brilliant and informative!!!
*by J***T on May 7, 2022*

This is probably the most informative and comprehensive history of Ukraine I've ever read! It really helps put the current situation into context, and helps you realize just how much Ukraine has been dominated by major foreign powers. Very rarely in its history was Ukraine a fully independent state; it was most often a vassal of other powers such as the Byzantine Empire, the Mongols, the Polish nations, and eventually the Russian (Muscovite) Empire. However, it had long dreamed of independence and, despite what some major politicians and pundits are claiming, Ukrainians are their own unique people group, not just a bunch of Russians who got lost and picked up an accent. Fair warning, though: with the way this book is written, it's easy to get bogged down in details, especially in the chapters chronicling the Bolshevik Revolution. It may help to draw an outline/overview when reading this book to keep the bigger picture in context.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A must read for the informed American reader!
*by P***J on January 11, 2016*

I believe John Herbst, former US Ambassador to Ukraine, best characterizes the book with his critique, quote “Serhii Plokhy offers a short yet comprehensive history of Ukraine that contextualizes Mr. Putin's current policies as aggression against the wishes of the Ukrainian people, as well as the order established at the end of the Cold War. A pleasure to read, The Gates of Europe will take those familiar with the Moscow narrative on a mind expanding tour of Ukraine's past." Prof. Serhii Plokhy, the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard and the director of the university's Ukrainian Research Institute, has written a history not to offend. Which is almost impossible as Adoplhe Thiers, in his preface to “Histoire de la Révolution Française” in 1838 wrote…”I intend to write the history of a memorable revolution which profoundly disturbed men, and which still divides them today. I do not conceal from myself the difficulties of the enterprise ... whereas we have the advantage of having heard and observed these old men who, still full of memories, and still aroused by their impressions, reveal to us the spirit and the character of the causes, and teach us to understand them. The moment when the actors are about to expire is perhaps the suitable one to write history: one can glean their evidence without sharing all their passions ... “I have pitied the combatants and I have freely applauded the generous spirits.”… Quoted from “A Savage War of Peace, Algeria 1954-1962” by Alistair Horne. This quote is appropriate for the period of 1890 to 2015 in “The Gates of Europe, from page 175 to page 354. I have spoken with people involved in all of these periods of Ukrainian history. I listened to their experiences with great interest. Many of them, no longer are alive, but their tales are still vividly with me. My grandfather, born in 1881, Dr. Lew Hankewycz experienced this political drama at the age of 14 (1895) when he was expelled from the gymnasium (high school) for comparing the poetry of the Ukrainian Taras Shevchenko to the poetry of the Polish Adam Mickiewicz. Prof. Serhii Plokhy an erudite, careful and discerning researcher of primary sources, has written brilliantly on Eastern European and Eurasian history. This book is somewhat different. It is written for the general reading public, and therefore requires a different approach, a bit more excitement. After all, Ukrainian History is explosively exciting! The publisher writes that prof. Plokhy argues that “we must examine Ukraine’s past in order to understand its present and future.”… In which case you must first read Prof. Plokhy’s “The Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus” to understand the Past, and in general Ukraine’s twisted historiography. I would then start reading from part III of this book, from page 131 “Between the Empires” to page 354, which ends the book in the spring of 2015. It is no small matter that his writing always gets good reviews from some of the most respected and prestigious members of his community. He is, after all, the best English writing historian on topics Ukrainian. His admirers, based on the book jacket include: • Andrew Wilson, professor of Ukrainian studies at University College London, author of “ Ukraine Crisis: What it Means for the West” • John Herbst, former US Ambassador to Ukraine, now Director of the National Defense University • Michael Ignatieff, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, author of “Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics” • Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of, “Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar” • Norman M. Naimark, Stanford University, author of “ Stalin's Genocides: Human Rights and Crimes against Humanity” • Peter Pomerantsev, is a senior fellow at the Legatum Institute in London and author “Nothing is True and Everything is Possible”. I was very surprised that Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of one of the best Stalin studies, “Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar”, claims Prof. Plokhy’s work is “revisionist”. What Montefiore tells me is he supports the Russian Imperial Historiography. This historiography was crafted for Peter I by Teofan Prokopvych. Prokopvych was first a supporter and sycophant to Hetman Mazepa and after Mazepa’s defeat at Poltava 1709, he became a sycophant and spiritual advisor to Tsar Peter I. This book is based on current knowledge and general agreement that the Russian Imperial Historiography is no longer workable, since it does not reflect today’s geopolitical reality. It is so refreshing to read an American scholar who does not transliterate from Russian. However, I question his consistency. He writes Dnipro as Dnieper. Why is Halychyna Galicia? I am puzzled why in most of the book he writes Moldavia and then near the end of the book he writes Moldova. These are quibbles, although the use of Dnieper is annoying, since historically this river is most important in Ukrainian history. Timothy Snyder in his review of this book uses the name Dnipro for this historic river!! The Spectator: The history of Ukraine — from Herodotus to Hitler by Timothy Snyder http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/the-history-of-ukraine-from-herodotus-to-hitler/ Crimea Prof. Plokhy gives the real reason for why Khrushchev in 1954 transferred Crimea to Ukraine, quote, “Despite the propagandistic effort to represent the transfer of the peninsula as a manifestation of fraternal amity between the two nations the real reasons were more prosaic. The key factor was geography. Cut off from Russia by the Kerch Strait and linked by communication lines to the Ukrainian mainland, the Crimea needed assistance from Ukraine to rebuild its economy, which not only the war and German occupation but also the expulsion of the Crimean Tartars undermined”. The second (1991) President of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk in a recent interview, said the same thing about Crimea as Prof. Plokhy. We can see the logic of Khrushchev’s reasoning by the current blockade of Crimea! It should not be forgotten that before 1954 the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UkrSSR) transferred to the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) its historic territories which bordered on the Smolensk, Kursk, Belgorod (Bilhorod) and Voronezh oblasts (regions). The Rostov region in 1924 was transferred to the city of Taganrog(Tahanrih). In the transferred territories the majority of the population at that time identified themselves as Ukrainian. Ukraine also transferred to Russia the region of Shakhty in Donbas and Starodub in the Chernihiv/Sivershchyna region. It resulted in the transfer to the RSFSR of land from Ukraine equal to the area of Crimea with a Ukrainian population of over 1.2 million people. Painful Subjects There are two painful topics covered in the book which need comment. One is the Holodomor. Prof. Plokhy prefers to use the term “Great Ukrainian Famine”! Why is the Holodomor not listed in the Index? What is the reason? The deposed President of Ukraine Yanukovych also delisted the Holodomor from his presidential web site!? The “Great Ukrainian Famine” is discussed on pages 249 to 254. The other is Ukraine’s fight for freedom during the period of 1940 to 1960, discussed on pages 245 to 305. On both subjects, it seems Prof. Plokhy’s early educational experience in the former Soviet Union have had an influence on his emotional historical world view. Holodomor On the topic of Plokhy’s “Great Ukrainian Famine” he puts his bet on 4 million Holodomor victims, whereas Timothy Snyder puts his bet on 2.4 victims Holodomor victims. What I don’t understand, is why historians ignore Duranty’s, Stalin’s, and Khrushchev's statements on the Holodomor, as well as the confirming census figures for the Soviet Union. In 1926 there were 31,195,000 Ukrainians within the USSR and in 1939 there were 28,111,000. A decrease of 11%! In 1926 there were 77,791,000 Russians within the USSR and in 1939 there were 99,591,000 Russians. An increase of 28%! In 1934 Walter Duranty, a reporter for the New York Times, privately reported to the British embassy in Moscow that as many as 10 million people may have died, directly or indirectly, from the famine in the Soviet Union (predominantly Ukrainian ethnographic regions) in the previous year. One should know that Duranty played a major role in shielding this massive horror from the rest of the world. The terror famine in Ukraine was one of the great crimes of the 20th century. Stalin told Churchill that 10 million starved to death in Ukraine! Khrushchev in his memoirs “Khrushchev Remembers” writes, quote “…I can't give an exact figure because no one was keeping count. All we knew was that people were dying in enormous numbers. ”. Khrushchev knows the numbers. He had intimate dealings with Kaganovich, the Project Manager of the Holodomor Project; they must have discussed it over horilka and salo (vodka and fat back). Khrushchev met Lazar Kaganovich as early as 1917 and when in 1925, Kaganovich became Party head in Ukraine, Khrushchev, fell under his patronage and thereafter rose rapidly through the Party ranks. That is why having close links to Kaganovich, Khrushchev as well as Stalin had reliable Holodomor Famine figures. Kaganovich survived to the age of 97, dying in 1991. Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom (1940 to 1960) Plokhy’s attitude to Ukrainian’s fighting for Independence reminds me of the Soviet attitudes of the Great Patriotic War (WW II). Plokhy’s unfortunate statement on page 284, quote …“securing Ukrainian Independence gave way to realities of Ukrainians wearing Nazi Swastikas and putting down the liberation movements of fellow Slavs”… What he is referring to is the Ukrainian 14th Waffen SS which fought Tito’s Communists. Throughout the War this unit only fought communists! Ukrainians fought in Polish, German and Soviet uniforms. None of them fought for Poland, Germany or Russia. The Ukrainians in the American Army did fight for the United States. The Swastika that Prof. Plokhy overly emphasizes was in a small insignia, of an eagle with a small wreath in its claws, in which you can barely see a swastika! Every German Army uniform had it. It should be noted that all Soviet military formations wore a Hammer and Sickle and under the Hammer and Sickle insignia and banners the Red Army went on to literally Rape “liberated Europe”. Ukrainians had the only military formations in WW II, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), to fight both Totalitarian Empires, German and Russian. In 1970 in Argentina I spoke with a young man from Volyn in Ukraine who told me, that in 1961 he was a witness to a military action by Ukrainian Insurgents in Volyn. All the Ukrainians that I had spoken with, told me that they fought for an Independent Ukraine, and not as Plokhy implies for the Nazis. See Michael O. Logusz “Galicia Division: The Waffen-SS 14th grenadier Division 1943-1945” and {Маців Б. “ У 45 Українська Дивізія << Галичина>> Історія у світлинах від заснування у 1943 р. до звільнення з полону 1949 р.} , ISBN 978-966-1518-19-2. Gorbachev There is also no bibliography, which does not allow me to verify Prof. Plokhy’s claim that Gorbachev’s father was Russian. There is a section called “Further Reading” but it is not a bibliography. In 1991 I met and spoke with a KGB General who came from the same Kuban Cossack Village as the Horbach family. The Russian version of the surname Horbach is Gorbachev. According to him Gorbachev was Ukrainian. Tatiana Lysenko the author of "The Price of Freedom" wrote about the Gorbachevs. She responded to my request for more information, quote..." Both ethnic Ukrainians! It was told to me by the well-known Moscow writer Nina Danhulova (deceased) who personally knew Raisa and Mikhail, and came from the same area as Mikhail Gorbachev. ... Michael's grandfather Andrey Horbach was of Ukrainian origin (Kuban Cossack).... Kuban Cossacks are ethnic Ukrainians, and it (Stavropol territory) was previously Ukrainian Kuban land ... So Michael was pure ethnic Ukrainian …”. Gail Sheehy, a contributing political editor to Vanity Magazine and the author of "The Man Who Changed the World (Gorbachev's biography)", 1990. Quote..."Gorbachev's ancestors were Ukrainian Cossacks...settling in the southernmost wilds of the territory of Stavropol...”. Notwithstanding my critical observations, “The Gates of Europe” is a must read for the informed American reader.

---

## Why Shop on Desertcart?

- 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016
- 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories
- 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price
- 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members)
- 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection
- ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews

**Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.vu/products/328793197-the-gates-of-europe-a-history-of-ukraine](https://www.desertcart.vu/products/328793197-the-gates-of-europe-a-history-of-ukraine)

---

*Product available on Desertcart Vanuatu*
*Store origin: VU*
*Last updated: 2026-05-09*