I can only suggest you to avoid any Ukrainian authors, they are extremely biased, hide or marginalize any situations that show nationalists in bad light.

In general it is a very good idea to look for reviews on jstor before reading any history book.

Here you will find a nice paper about the problem of nationalist mythmaking in post-Soviet historiography by Ronald Grigor Suny.

And here is a paper by Per A. Rudling on that problem in the Ukraine in particular. It does include an overview of both the history of the Ukrainian nationalist movement and the big English language books on Ukrainian history.

Ukraine is an artificial state created by the Soviet Union. In 1920 the population forcibly Ukrainianised.

Already in August 1923 for government officials and party functionaries organized courses of Ukrainian language. Those who did not pass them and do not pass the exam, risked losing position. From 1925 it was compulsory use of the Ukrainian language in the public proceedings. Since 1927 the party documentation translated into Ukrainian. "

In 1926, during the census Maloros nationality replaced by a Ukrainian, and the word Malorossiya was forbidden.

In 1927 - 97% of Malorossiyan children learn the Ukrainian language. This figure has not yet been surpassed during the Soviet era (in 1990 it was only 47.9%).

Sharply increasing the number of Ukrainian media (in 1933 it amounted to 89% of the total circulation of newspapers in the country).

In 1932, for the first time entered the nationality of the passport - "Ukrainian" ... above listed confirms the victory of the Bolshevik "tops" (Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Radek, ...) over the Stalinist group planned accession of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.

in 1919 it adopted a resolution on equality of languages: Ukrainian and Russian. In the spring of 1920 and VUTSIK CC CP (B) U has created a special commission to Ukrainization.

In the spring of 1923 the Central Committee KP (B) U adopted a resolution on "The development of the Ukrainian language." It was decided to publish the academic vocabulary of the Ukrainian language, and the Commissariat had the duty to ensure that the basis for the dictionary was put Kiev-Poltava dialect and not Galician. But began Ukrainization Malorossiya, Novorossiya, Slobozhanshchina with the Kremlin. "The resolution of the Central Committee of the RCP (B) of the Soviet government in Ukraine" (December 2, 1919) required all officials southwestern Russia compulsorily to master "Ukrainian language". In a telegram to Stalin on February 22, 1920. Lenin insisted on the need "to immediately start the interpreters staffs and military institutions."