Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Gates of Europe, ＂a singularly fascinating account of Russian nationalism through the ages＂ (Financial Times)

In early 2022, Russia started an all-out war on Ukraine, following in the footsteps of the earlier 2014 invasion, but this is only the latest iteration of a centuries-long effort to expand Russian boundaries and create a pan-Russian nation. In Lost Kingdom, award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues that we can only understand the confluence of Russian imperialism and nationalism today by delving into the nation’s history. Spanning over five hundred years, from the end of the Mongol rule to the present day, Lost Kingdom shows how leaders from Ivan the Great to Vladimir Putin exploited existing forms of identity, warfare, and territorial expansion to achieve imperial supremacy.

Now with an updated epilogue that brings this history up to the present state of the war between Russia and Ukraine, Lost Kingdom is essential reading for understanding today’s conflict.

Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History and director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. The author of The Gates of Europe and The Man with the Poison Gun, most recently, Plokhy is an award-winning author of numerous books. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts.