Resources to learn more about the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Compiled by the Department of History, Politics, and Political Economy
Books and Articles
The following 5 books by Dr. Timothy Snyder, Yale History Professor and expert on Ukrainian History:
- The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (deals with politics, ideology, and propaganda under Putin)
- Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (a history of mass killing by both the Nazi and Soviet regimes)
- Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (interpretation of the Holocaust in which Hitler’s desire to control Ukrainian land is a central element)
- The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (emergence of Ukraine and other modern nations from the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth)
- On Tyranny Kimberly Marten, reducing Tensions Between Russia and NATO, Council on Foreign Relations: Center for Preventative Action, Special Report No. 79, March 2017.
Zongyuan Zoe Liu. Mar 02. What’s at Stake for China’s Economic Relationship with Ukraine? Council on Foreign Relations.
Erica Frantz and Joseph Wright. Mar 02, 2022. It’s not just a Putin problem. ‘Personalists’ like him are behind much of the world’s bad behavior. Monkey Cage- The Washington Post.
Andrew H. Kydd. 2022. The U.S. and Europe didn’t get what they wanted from Putin. But Putin didn’t get what he wanted from them. Monkey Cage- The Washington Post.
Derek Thompson. Feb 27. How the Crisis in Ukraine May End. The Atlantic.
Isaac Chotiner. Mar 1. Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine. The New Yorker.
Online Conversations:
- “Ukraine and the NATO Alliance” Guest Speaker: Mark Laity Tuesday March 15, 12:00 (noon) Selwyn College, Cambridge. Free live streaming event, register to join the audience: https://www.sel.cam.ac.uk/ukraine-and-nato-alliance
- -Mark Laity is a former BBC defense correspondent; a former NATO spokesman; and he was Director of communications at SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe). He has reported from, and worked in, many of the world’s conflict zones
- Democracy Now!, guest Anatol Lieven
Podcasts:
Why it Matters. Mar 02. Episode: "Perspective on Ukraine, with Richard Haass."
The Weeds. Mar 01. Episode: "Russia's terrible invasion."
The Ezra Klein Show. Mar 04: Episode: "Fareed Zakaria Has a Better Way to Handle Russia-- and China"
The Ezra Klein Show. Mar 01. Episode: "Can the West Stop Russia by Strangling its Economy?"
On foreign policy:
- One end of the spectrum is John Mearsheimer's argument that the conditions for this crisis were created largely by NATO, and Putin is behaving in predictable realist fashion (not a personal endorsement of all of Mearsheimer's argument but I think this is an important perspective to confront). A short interview with JM where he defends and updates this view here. Tony Wood and Katrina Vanden Heuvel have made similar arguments about the context of NATO enlargement, but from the perspective of deep commitments to the region and without Mearsheimer's realist axe to grind (Woods' book, "Russia Without Putin" is also really excellent, at least from the bit of it that I've read).
- On the other end of the spectrum, Masha Gessen has been one of the most eloquent interpreters of Putin as fundamentally driven by illiberal, even totalitarian, ideologies. Their reporting of the war for the New Yorker has been powerful, and generally follows the views they developed in their books, Surviving Autocracy” and “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia"
- On practical, nonmilitaristic and anti-imperial policy options in response to Putin's invasion, I thought these pieces by Polina Godz and Branco Marcetic were interesting and thought provoking (broadly applying foreign policy principles sketched out here). Jacobin, where these pieces were published, is also publishing some very good coverage, messages and interviews of the anti-war opposition within Russia.
- If book suggestions aren't completely out of place, three very recent books from which I learned the most about Russia/Ukraine/NATO relations are:
- Dissidents among Dissidents: Ideology, Politics and the Left in Post-Soviet Russia by Ilya Budraitskis
- Russia’s Foreign Policy: Change and Continuity in National Identity by Andrei Tsygankov
- Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate by M. E. Sarotte
On the political sociology and political economy
- I've been following closely Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko. I found this piece, published shortly before Russia's invasion, to be extremely helpful. An earlier piece that sketches the main themes of his political sociology of post-soviet society here.
- Although published several years ago, I found Perry Anderson's survey of the political economy and sociology of Russian nationalism under Putin (with a long section on Russia/Ukraine relations) illuminative.
- Whatever feeble grasp I have on the international political economy effects of the war and sanctions comes from reading people like Adam Tooze and Eric Hacopian (Tooze's substack has been appropriately scathing on the toothlessness of many of the western santions)
- I've also found Anatol Lieven's recent articles, especially in several recent interviews, extremely helpful in understanding the domestic pressures and tensions that are helping to drive Putin's foreign policy in Ukraine. He's also author of a book entitled Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry which, based on how much I've learned from his articles, is high on my reading list.