The history of the Latvian people begins some four and a half millennia ago, with the arrival of the proto-Baltic Indo-Europeans in northern Europe. Over the following centuries of domination by successive European powers, the land's inhabitants preserved a powerful sense of identity, fostered by their ancient language, oral literature, songs and customs. These in turn informed and spurred the rise of national consciousness in the nineteenth century, and the political activities of the twentieth, which brought the modern nation-state of Latvia into being. This book traces the genesis and growth of that nation, its endurance over centuries of conquest and oppression, the process by which it achieved its independence, and its status as a member of the European community in the twenty-first century.