The tragic history of the European nation
Book by the author of the bestseller Chernobyl.

Today, Ukraine is fighting with Russia to preserve its territorial integrity and political independence. However, the current conflict is only the latest in a long line of battles over the territory of Ukraine and its existence as a sovereign nation. As the award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy writes in the book Gates of Europe, to understand the present and future of Ukraine, one must know its past well.
Ukraine has been shaped by empires that used it as a strategic gateway between East and West – from the Roman Empire to the Ottoman Empire to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. For centuries, different cultures met on its territory. The mixing of settled and nomadic peoples and Christianity with Islam in the steppe borderlands created a class of fighting Cossacks; from the clash between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches arose a religious tradition bringing together Western and Eastern Christianity.
The current crisis is a tragic case of history repeating itself, as Ukraine once again finds itself at the center of a battle of global proportions. As an expertly credible history of this important country, the book Gates of Europe provides a unique insight into the origins of the most serious international crisis since the Cold War.