Author Information: Timothy Snyder received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1997, and has held fellowships in Paris, Vienna, Warsaw, Prague, and at Harvard. He is the author of Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (Harvard University Press, 1998); The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (Yale University Press, 2003); and Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine (Yale University Press, 2005). He is also the co-editor of Wall Around the West: State Power and Immigration Controls in Europe and North America (Rowman and Littlefield, 2001). His current project is a family history of modern nationalism.  (from his Yale Faculty Bio)

Book Description: Modern nationalism in northeastern Europe has often led to violence and then reconciliation between nations with bloody pasts. In this fascinating book, Timothy Snyder traces the emergence of Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Belarusian nationhood over four centuries, discusses various atrocities (including the first account of the massive Ukrainian-Polish ethnic cleansings of the 1940s), and examines Poland's recent successful negotiations with its newly independent Eastern neighbors, as it has channeled national interest toward peace. (Powell's synopsis)

Recommendation: This book was recommended to me by frequent reader and commenter WRY: "This is one of my very favorite books on the formation of national identity and similar concepts. Man, what a hell of a book. It's all here, the question of Russian/Ukrainian/pan-slavic identity, the question of overlapping national identities, Ukrainian nationalism during WWII etc etc. plus all the other countries mentioned."

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