In 2009, the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute gathered scholars from around the globe and from various fields of study to mark the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava. This collection of their papers provides a fresh look at this watershed event and sheds new light on the legacies of the battle's major players.

'This victory', exulted Peter the Great, 'has laid the final stone in the foundations of St Petersburg!' The Battle of Poltava, 1709, marks the birth of the Tsar's vast Russian Empire. In 1700, seeking to open Russian trade routes to the West, the Tsar combined with Denmark, Saxony and Poland to attack Swedish hegemony in the North. Against the odds, King Charles XII of Sweden subdued the hostile coalition for nearly a decade, but in 1708 took his fatal decision to march for Moscow. His defeat at Poltava, in the Ukraine, proved the turning-point of the Great Northern War, heralding the collapse of the Swedish Empire and the rise of Russia, the effects of which would be felt for almost three hundred years. Swedish historian Peter Englund's vivid account of the three violent days of battle is an internationally acclaimed classic of military history, admired by scholars and the lay reader alike.

The Swedish Empire, although not comparable with the huge areas and populations that we today associate with such empires as Rome, the Mongols or the Russian and British, was a formidable force to be reckoned with during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Her rise to the imperium can be traced back to the middle of the sixteenth century when, along with Russia, Poland and Denmark, Sweden also took advantage of the vacuum in the Baltic created after the collapse of the Teutonic Knights. The power struggle that resulted netted Sweden Livonia from Poland, West Pomerania and some of East Pomerania, Bremen, Verden and Wismar. She acquired Halland, Jämtland, Härjedalen and the Gotland and Ösel islands from Denmark, together with Skåne, Bohuslän and Blekinge, while Russia ceded Ingria and Lexholm, which effectively cut her off from the Baltic Sea. The Battle of Poltava (8 July 1709) was the decisive and largest battle of the Great Northern War. A Russian army under the command of Tsar Peter I defeated a Swedish army, under the command of Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld. The battle put an end to the status of the Swedish Empire as a European great power, as well as its eastbound expansion, and marked the beginning of Russian hegemony in Northern Europe.

"A History of Baroque Music is a detailed treatment of the music of the Baroque era, with particular focus on the seventeenth century. The author's approach is a history of musical style with an emphasis on musical scores. The book is divided initially by time period into early and later Baroque (1600-1700 and 1700-1750 respectively), and secondarily by country and composer. An introductory chapter discusses stylistic continuity with the late Renaissance and examines the etymology of the term "Baroque." The concluding chapter on the composer Telemann addresses the stylistic shift that led to the end of the Baroque and the transition into the Classical period."--Jacket.