North of the Byzantine Empire lived a people that historians today call Slavs. They were Indo-Europeans, like the Aryans who entered the Indus Valley and the Dorians who conquered the Mycenaeans. Chapter 23 is about the Eastern Slavs.
Section 1 describes what life was like for the earliest Eastern Slavs, who began to develop settlements in eastern Europe around 500 A.D. in the areas now known as eastern Poland and western Ukraine.
Section 2 explains how early Rus states developed around the capital of Kiev, describes the important rulers, and tells how Eastern Christianity influenced the people of Rus. The section also explains the reasons for the decline of Kievan Rus.
Section 3 focuses on the changes the Mongol tribes brought to Rus.
Section 4 describes the rise of Moscow as the center of Rus economic and religious life and what life was like there under the rule of czars Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible.