Book Review: Please Write The Book View In The Undergraduate Level

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Book Review: Slavic Civilization through the Ages by Samuel Hazzard Cross
Cross focuses on the cultural and historical background of the Slavic people primarily living in Eastern Europe including the Balkan region. The Slavic people had occupied much of the area from the Baltic to the Volga region, but the distribution of their migration remains unclear unlike the social outcome (Cross 17). There are cross regional similarities, but with the spread of Orthodox Christian, Catholicism and Islam there are also regional and political differences. Slavic civilization has been influenced by contact between the Slavic and non Slavic people, changes in the political structure and the spread of religion.
In the medieval times the Slavs were not highly organized, while their locations near Asia influenced their ways of life and ancestry. Cross highlights that Slavs are divided into the eastern, Western and Southern groups, with Russians being part of the eastern group and they have the highest population (2). Among the western Slavs are the Czechs, Slovaks and Poles, the Southern Slavs are people from the former Yugoslavia, The Croats and Serbs, as well as Slovenes. The area around Danube appears to have been a frontier from where Slavs migrated and mountain obstacles may have protected the Serbs from foreign incursions.
While the book lacks footnotes and bibliography to provide further explanations about Slavic civilizations and their history, the eight chapters highlighted the changes that occurred among Slavic people. The first four chapters focus on the migration and religious conversions of Slavs providing a background on how this came to define the people. For instance, in the eighth and ninth century missionary work led to the growth of Christianity in the area populated by the Slav, but there was also colonization that resulted in the population of pure Slavic people decreasing (55). While Cross linked the spread of Christianity with changes in Slavic populated areas, he later highlighted the influence of Islam as Albania and Bosnia later became Muslim majority societies in the Balkans.
In chapter five, the author highlighted the importance of Russian civilization to the Slavic people, where the Eastern Orthodox Church played a critical role. The Russian civilization was separate from western civilization. The waning power of the Byzantine intellectual influence affected Slavic civilization, which increasingly underwent Russification. Cross pointed out that Russia literature and art was closely associated with the Byzantines before the Russians invaded...