Books on Ukraine and Russia
As war tragically rages on in Ukraine, Library members will turn to books in our collection to find insight into the historical and contemporary context of the conflict. We present a generous list of (mostly) recent books in our collection on Ukraine, Putin’s Russia, Chernobyl, general Russian history, and 20th-21st – century U.S.-Russia relations to help orient readers seeking some understanding of the war.
Overwhelmed? Check these thoughtful recommended reading lists:
- From the excellent Five Books website: The best books on Ukraine and Russia (recommended by Serhii Plokhy, Harvard professor and author of a few books on our list) & Edward Lucas, The best books on Contemporary Russia
- Los Angeles Times: 12 essential books on Ukraine, Russia and Putin
- The Atlantic: Nine Books to Read to Understand the War in Ukraine
- The Guardian: Five of the best books about Russia and Ukraine
- Literary Hub: Understanding the Ukraine Crisis: A Comprehensive Reading List
- The Guardian: Beyond the Fog of War: Books to Help us Understand the Invasion of Ukraine
- NPR: Ten Books to Read About Ukraine
- The Atlantic: Nine Books to Read to Understand the War in Ukraine
- The Economist: Six books that explain the history and culture of Ukraine
If you would like to read a book from one of the recommended reading lists that is not in our catalog, fill out a request slip or log in to our website and use the Suggest a Purchase form.
The list of books below is just a small sampling of what is to be found in the stacks. Titles are linked to bibliographic records in our online catalog; remember to click the hyperlinked subject headings in bibliographic records to discover additional relevant books. And as many of our members can testify, look on the shelves next to the volume you went to fetch. The perfect book you didn’t know you were looking for may be right there.
For readers who prefer to head straight to the stacks, the 947 call number range in stack two is where you will find most (but not all) of the relevant books in our collection on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe. 947 covers a lot of geographical and topical territory, and the call number is further subdivided to help browsers find what they are looking for. A couple of call numbers to keep in mind are 947.086, which covers the history of post-Soviet Russia (1992-) and 947.7, the classification for books on Ukraine.
UKRAINE 
- Applebaum, Anne - Red famine: Stalin's war on Ukraine
- Belorusets, Yevgenia - War Diary
- Berkhoff, Karel C. - Harvest of despair: life and death in Ukraine under Nazi rule
- Brahin, Lisa - Tears over Russia: a search for family and the legacy of Ukraine's pogroms
- Conquest, Robert - The harvest of sorrow: Soviet collectivization and the terror-famine
- D’Anieri, Paul - Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War
- Davidzon, Vladislav - From Odessa with love: political and literary essays from post-Soviet Ukraine (preface by Simon Sebag Montefiore)
- Harding, Luke - Invasion: the inside story of Russia's bloody war & Ukraine's fight for survival
- Judah, Tim - In wartime: stories from Ukraine
- Kalb, Marvin L. - Imperial gamble: Putin, Ukraine, and the new Cold War
- King, Charles - Odessa: genius and death in a city of dreams
- Kurkov, Andrey - Ukraine diaries: dispatches from Kiev
- Kurkov, Andrey - Diary of an invasion: the Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Matthews, Owen - Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine
- Menon, Rajan - Conflict in Ukraine: the unwinding of the post-Cold War order
- Onuch, Olga & Henry E. Hale - The Zelensky Effect
- Plokhy, Serhii - The gates of Europe: a history of Ukraine
- Reid, Anna - Borderland: a journey through the history of Ukraine
- Shore, Marci - The Ukrainian night: an intimate history of revolution
- Snyder, Timothy - Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin
- Snyder, Timothy - The reconstruction of nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999
- Subtelny, Orest - Ukraine: a history
- Toal, Gerard - Near abroad: Putin, the West and the contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus
- Vindman, Alexander - Here, right matters : an American story
- Wilson, Andrew - The Ukrainians: unexpected nation
- Wilson, Andrew - Ukraine's orange revolution
- Wittlin, Józef - City of lions (with Philippe Sands; photographs by Diana Matar)
- Yekelchyk, Serhy - Ukraine: birth of a modern nation
- Yekelchyk, Serhy - Ukraine: What everyone needs to know
- Yovanovitch, Marie - Lessons from the edge: a memoir
PUTIN'S RUSSIA 
- Baker, Peter - Kremlin rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the end of revolution
- Belton, Catherine - Putin's people: how the KGB took back Russia and then took on the West
- Browder, Bill - Red notice: a true story of high finance, murder, and one man's fight for justice
- Clover, Charles - Black wind, white snow: the rise of Russia's new nationalism
- Dawisha, Karen - Putin's kleptocracy: who owns Russia?
- Feifer, Gregory - Russians: the people behind the power
- Galeotti, Mark - The Vory: Russia's super mafia
- Garrels, Anne - Putin country: a journey into the real Russia
- Gessen, Masha - The future is history: how totalitarianism reclaimed Russia
- Gessen, Masha - The man without a face: the unlikely rise of Vladimir Putin
- Goldman, Marshall I. - Petrostate: Putin, power, and the new Russia
- Greene, Samuel A. - Putin v. the people: the perilous politics of a divided Russia
- Harding, Luke - A very expensive poison: the definitive story of the murder of Litvinenko and Russia's war with the West
- Hill, Fiona - Mr. Putin: operative in the Kremlin
- Jack, Andrew - Inside Putin's Russia
- Kasparov, G. K. - Winter is coming: why Vladimir Putin and the enemies of the free world must be stopped
- Khrushcheva, Nina L. - In Putin's footsteps: searching for the soul of an empire across Russia's eleven time zones (with Jeffrey Tayler)
- Laqueur, Walter - Putinism: Russia and its future with the West
- LeVine, Steve - Putin's labyrinth: spies, murder, and the dark heart of the new Russia
- Lucas, Edward - The new Cold War: the future of Russia and the threat to the West
- Maddow, Rachel - Blowout: corrupted democracy, rogue state Russia, and the richest, most destructive industry on Earth
- Medvedev, Sergei - The return of the Russian leviathan
- Mezrich, Ben - Once upon a time in Russia: the rise of the oligarchs: a true story of ambition, wealth, betrayal, and murder
- Myers, Steven Lee - The new tsar: the rise and reign of Vladimir Putin
- Pleshakov, Konstantin - The Crimean nexus: Putin's war and the clash of civilizations
- Politkovskaya, Anna - A Russian diary: a journalist's final account of life, corruption, and death in Putin's Russia
- Politkovskaya, Anna - Putin's Russia: life in a failing democracy
- Pomerantsev, Peter - Nothing is true and everything is possible: the surreal heart of the new Russia
- Short, Philip - Putin
- Snyder, Timothy - The road to unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America
- Stuermer, Michael - Putin and the rise of Russia
- Wood, Tony - Russia without Putin: money, power and the myths of the new Cold War
- Yaffa, Joshua - Between two fires: truth, ambition, and compromise in Putin's Russia
- Zygar, Mikhail - All the Kremlin's men: inside the court of Vladimir Putin
RUSSIA - GENERAL HISTORY 
- Fatland, Erica - Border: a journey around Russia: through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway and the Northwest Passage (translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson)
- Figes, Orlando - The story of Russia (the Library has several other acclaimed books on Russia by Figes)
- Ostrovsky, Arkady - The invention of Russia: from Gorbachev's freedom to Putin's war
- Plokhy, Serhii - Lost kingdom: the quest for empire and the making of the Russian nation, from 1470 to the present
- Plokhy, Serhii - The last empire: the final days of the Soviet Union
- Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. - A history of Russia
- Sheets, Lawrence Scott - Eight pieces of empire: a 20-year journey through the Soviet collapse
- Sixsmith, Martin - Russia: a 1,000 year chronicle of the wild east
CHERNOBYL
- Aleksievich, Svetlana - Voices from Chernobyl (translation and preface by Keith Gessen)
- Brown, Kate - Manual for survival: a Chernobyl guide to the future
- Higginbotham, Adam - Midnight in Chernobyl: the untold story of the world's greatest nuclear disaster
- Plokhy, Serhii - Chernobyl: the history of a nuclear catastrophe
U.S. - RUSSIA RELATIONS
- Cohen, Stephen F. - War with Russia?: from Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate
- Conradi, Peter - Who lost Russia?: how the world entered a new Cold War
- McFaul, Michael - From Cold War to hot peace: an American ambassador in Putin's Russia
- Sarotte, M. E. - Not one inch: America, Russia, and the making of post-Cold War stalemate
- Sciutto, Jim - The shadow war: inside Russia's and China's secret operations to defeat America
- Shimer, David - Rigged: America, Russia, and one hundred years of covert electoral interference
- Weiner, Tim - The folly and the glory: America, Russia, and political warfare, 1945-2020
