Basilevsky Alexander. Early Ukraine: A Military and Social History to the Mid-19th Century

Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2016. — 397 p. — ISBN: 978-0-7864-9714-0.As the Dark Ages enveloped Europe, a civilization was born on the banks of the Dnieper River. Rus--whose capital at Kiev surpassed in grandeur most cities of Europe--was home to the Ukrainian people, whose princes made war on Constantinople and established the city states of what would become Russia. The cities of Rus were destroyed by the Mongols, their remains falling to the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom. With the steppe restored to wilderness, the "kraina" borderlands of the hardy frontiersmen known as Cossacks--who in the 17th century destroyed powerful Polish, Lithuanian and Muscovite armies--gained Ukrainian independence and established a unique social order.
Drawing on English, Ukrainian and French sources, this book chronicles the military and social origins of Ukraine and describes the differences between Ukraine and its neighbors. The author refutes the claim that Ukraine and Russia were once united in a common political system.Introduction: History and Politics.
The Early History.
The Roman Empire.
The Slavs and the Roman Empire.
Rus: The Early Beginnings.
The Rise of the Kyiv State.
Civilization Comes to Rus.
The Papal Crusades.
Internal Conflict and Foreign Invasion.
The Coming of the Mongols.
The Rise of the Cossacks.
The Zaporozhian Brotherhood and the First Cossack Wars.
Rising Up Against Oppression.
The Ukrainian Revolution.
The Revolution Continues.
Alliance with the Tsar and the Death of Khmelnitsky.
The Cossacks Defeated.
The End of Cossack Freedom.
The Birth of the Ukrainian State.