Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914-1954 Browse Inside

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Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914-1954

By George O. Liber

© 2016

Between 1914 and 1954, the Ukrainian-speaking territories in East Central Europe suffered almost 15 million “excess deaths” as well as numerous large-scale evacuations and forced population transfers. These losses were the devastating consequences of the two world wars, revolutions, famines, genocidal campaigns, and purges that wracked Europe in the first half of the twentieth century and spread new ideas, created new political and economic systems, and crafted new identities.

In Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914–1954, George O. Liber argues that the continuous violence of the world wars and interwar years transformed the Ukrainian-speaking population of East Central Europe into self-conscious Ukrainians. Wars, mass killings, and forced modernization drives made and re-made Ukraine’s boundaries, institutionalized its national identities, and pruned its population according to various state-sponsored political, racial, and social ideologies. In short, the two world wars, the Holodomor, and the Holocaust played critical roles in forming today’s Ukraine.

A landmark study of the terrifying scope and paradoxical consequences of mass violence in Europe’s bloodlands, Liber’s book will transform our understanding of the entangled histories of Ukraine, the USSR, Germany, and East Central Europe in the twentieth century.

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Product Details

  • World Rights
  • Page Count: 416 pages
  • Dimensions: 6.0in x 1.2in x 9.0in
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  • PUBLISHED MAR 2016

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  • PUBLISHED MAY 2016

    From: $32.96

    Regular Price: $43.95

Library Recommendation

Quick Overview

Liber’s book will transform our understanding of the entangled histories of Ukraine, the USSR, Germany, and East Central Europe in the twentieth century.

Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914-1954

By George O. Liber

© 2016

Between 1914 and 1954, the Ukrainian-speaking territories in East Central Europe suffered almost 15 million “excess deaths” as well as numerous large-scale evacuations and forced population transfers. These losses were the devastating consequences of the two world wars, revolutions, famines, genocidal campaigns, and purges that wracked Europe in the first half of the twentieth century and spread new ideas, created new political and economic systems, and crafted new identities.

In Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914–1954, George O. Liber argues that the continuous violence of the world wars and interwar years transformed the Ukrainian-speaking population of East Central Europe into self-conscious Ukrainians. Wars, mass killings, and forced modernization drives made and re-made Ukraine’s boundaries, institutionalized its national identities, and pruned its population according to various state-sponsored political, racial, and social ideologies. In short, the two world wars, the Holodomor, and the Holocaust played critical roles in forming today’s Ukraine.

A landmark study of the terrifying scope and paradoxical consequences of mass violence in Europe’s bloodlands, Liber’s book will transform our understanding of the entangled histories of Ukraine, the USSR, Germany, and East Central Europe in the twentieth century.

Continue Reading Read Less

Product Details

  • World Rights
  • Page Count: 416 pages
  • Dimensions: 6.0in x 1.2in x 9.0in

  • Reviews

    ‘This book ought to be studies by citizens everywhere who seek to understand the long duration of the current Ukrainian crisis.’


    Alan Kimball
    The Russian Review vol 76:02:2017

    Outstanding rated title. Essential addition to most library collections.

    ‘This volume is recommended for libraries with a strong AP history population or those libraries with a significant Ukrainian population… Students can utilize the material for research purpose.’


    Annemarie Roscello
    American Association of School Librarians

    Outstanding rated title. Essential addition to most library collections.

    ‘This volume is recommended for libraries with a strong AP history population or those libraries with a significant Ukrainian population… Students can utilize the material for research purpose.’


    Annemarie Roscello
    American Association of School Librarians

    "George O. Liber’s Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914-1954, is a detailed, often very competent and thoughtful synthesis…At its best, Total Wars handles great complexity impressively…it is often a very useful survey of a history whose complexities need to be confronted even-handedly and also always directly."


    Tarik Cyril Amar
    The American Historical Review, Volume 122, Issue 4, 1 October 2017

    "Liber [advances] a sophisticated argument about the role of wartime violence in the shaping of a modern Ukrainian identity... This excellent book will be of interest to an academic and general audience alike."


    Sery Yekelchyk, University of Victoria
    University of Toronto Quarterly, vol 87 3, Summer 2018

    "This extensive study of forty years of Ukrainian history provides a missing link between authoritative textbooks of Ukrainian history and monographs analyzing Ukraine’s importance as a geographical flashpoint."


    Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon, Lee College
    East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies, vol VI, 1

    "Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914–1954 is a persuasive synthesis of the modern Ukrainian historical experience. Instead of defending or condemning that experience, Liber shows how Ukraine came to assume statehood amidst the turmoil of the violent twentieth century."


    Hiroaki Kuromiya, Department of History, Indiana University

    "George Liber makes the concept of 1914–1945 as a modern 'Thirty Years War' the fulcrum of a timely and interesting take on Ukrainian history in the first half of the twentieth century."


    Frank Sysyn, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta

  • Author Information

    George O. Liber is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

  • Table of contents

    Note to Readers

    Note on Ukraine’s Administrative Territorial Structure

    Russian, Soviet, and Ukrainian Measurements

    Maps

    Introduction

    1. The Ukrainian-Speaking Provinces before the Great War

    PART ONE: THE FIRST TOTAL WAR AND ITS AFTERSHOCKS

    2. The First World War and Imperial Convulsions

    3. Political Collapse, Revolutions, and Social Upheavals, 1917–1923

    4. Ukrainian Movements in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, 1918–1939

    PART TWO: THE SECOND TOTAL WAR: SOCIAL ENGINEERING

    5. Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s: Managed Diversity

    6. Hypercentralization, Industrialization, and the Grain Front, 1927–1934

    7 Hypercentralization and the Political / Cultural Fronts, 1929–1941

    PART THREE: THE THIRD TOTAL WAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

    8 The Second World War: The Killing Fields

    9 Stalin’s Ukraine, 1945–1954

    Conclusion

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