The monograph of two British historians, offered to the attention of the Russian reader, is the first book in Longman's multi-volume History of Russia. The authors ask the question that worried Russian historians, starting with the compilers of The Tale of Bygone Years, namely, “where did the Russian land come from?” Answering this question, the authors, relying on the latest discoveries and research, revise many key moments in the initial history of Rus'. Scientists re-evaluate the role of the Normans in the emergence of a political unification on the territory of the East European Plain, criticize the Kiev-centric concept of Russian history, substantiate a new understanding of the so-called appanage period, which, in their opinion, is erroneously considered a period of political and economic decline of Ancient Rus'.