Review by Choice Review
Part of a larger project to profile eight of Imperial Russia's largest cities from the 1860s to 1917, having its genesis in two collections edited by Hamm: The City in Russian History (CH, Jul'76) and The City in Late Imperial Russia (CH, Dec'86). This work takes its place beside Stephen Corrsin's on Warsaw (1989), Patricia Herlihy's on Odessa (1986), and Anders Henriksson's on Riga (1983), as well as the more paradigmatic works on Russian urbanization by Joseph Bradley (1985), Robert Thurston (1987), and Daniel Brower (1990). Based on Russian and Soviet archival materials, a wealth of journals, newspapers, and secondary works, and filled with period lithographs, photographs, and informative tables, Hamm's book provides a thorough picture of a great city's evolution. Chapters 2 through 6 are central, tracing Kiev's growth, ethnic dimensions (the activties and social composition of the Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish communities), and crime, recreation, and popular culture. Although the final two chapters--on the Revolution of 1905 and its aftermath--seem somewhat misplaced methodologically, they nonetheless enliven the stage that has already been meticulously set. Undergraduates. G. E. Snow; Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
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. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Library Journal Review
