Reviews

Invasion: Russia's Bloody War and Ukraine's Fight for Survival by Luke Harding

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zachhois's review against another edition

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informative tense slow-paced

3.0

robertrivasplata's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

3.75

Summary of the first 6 months or so of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the historical context going back to the Soviet era & before. No mention of Nestor Makhno, however. This is a decent overview for someone who hasn't followed the news that closely, or who don't know the history that well, but certainly not the final word on anything. I suppose that book will have to wait until the shooting stops & archives become available (& enough scribes & copyists can be assembled from the scattered survivors of humanity). Harding talks to Ukrainian officials, ordinary citizens, soldiers, and refugees as well as to exiled Russian journalists & dissidents. I was hoping for more personal stories from ordinary people like those he talked to, but there's only so much one can get in such a small book.

eedwards117's review against another edition

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3.0

I was looking for a book that captured the human cost of the war and what it is like on the frontlines today in Ukraine. While it’s pretty soon to write a book about an ongoing conflict, I was hoping that a journalist embedded in the country and the war could share interesting human stories from the frontline.

Instead, this book was mostly background on the conflict and interviews with civilians caught in the crossfire. While that was still fulfilling, I felt that as someone who has been following the news closely around the war, this book provided little new information.

If you know little about the conflict and want to know how it started and the experience of common people caught in the middle, I would still recommend this book.