New Book On Ukraine

The John Hopkins University Press has recently published a book entitled Rebounding Identities: The Politics of Identity in Russia and Ukraine. This 10-chapter volume is co-edited by Dominique Arel, the Chair of the Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa and Blair A. Ruble, director of the Kennan Institute and author of Creating Diversity Capital: Transnational Migrants in Montreal, Washington and Kyiv. The book's essays examine post-Soviet society through ethnic, religious and linguistic criteria. They take typically anthropological subject matter and make it the basis of politics, sociology and history. The chapters cover subjects such as Ukrainian language revival; Tatar language revival; nationalist separatism and assimilation in Russia; religious pluralism in Russia and in Ukraine; and the politics of map-making. Rebounding Identities grew out of workshops led by Arel and Ruble at the Keenan Institute. The Institute was founded as a division of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1974 by Ambassador George F. Kennan, then Wilson Center Director James Billington, and historian S. Frederick Starr. Named in honour of Ambassador Kennan’s relative, George Kennan, a 19th-century explorer of Russia and Siberia, the Institute is committed to improving American knowledge about Russia, Ukraine, and other states in the region.