About this ebook
Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2018
'An insightful and important book, that often reads like a good thriller, and that exposes the danger of mixing powerful technology with irresponsible politics' - Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens
'As moving as it is painstakingly researched. . . a cracking read' - Viv Groskop, Observer
The gripping story of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, from an acclaimed historian and writer
On the morning of 26 April 1986 Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine. The outburst put the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation. In the end, less than five percent of the reactor's fuel escaped, but that was enough to contaminate over half of Europe with radioactive fallout.
In Chernobyl, Serhii Plokhy recreates these events in all of their drama, telling the stories of the firefighters, scientists, engineers, workers, soldiers, and policemen who found themselves caught in a nuclear Armageddon and succeeded in doing the seemingly impossible: extinguishing the nuclear inferno and putting the reactor to sleep. While it is clear that the immediate cause of the accident was a turbine test gone wrong, Plokhy shows how the deeper roots of Chernobyl lay in the nature of the Soviet political system and the flaws of its nuclear industry. A little more than five years later, the Soviet Union would fall apart, destroyed from within by its unsustainable communist ideology and the dysfunctional managerial and economic systems laid bare in the wake of the disaster.
A poignant, fast paced account of the drama of heroes, perpetrators, and victims, Chernobyl is the definitive history of the world's worst nuclear disaster.
'An insightful and important book, that often reads like a good thriller, and that exposes the danger of mixing powerful technology with irresponsible politics' - Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens
'As moving as it is painstakingly researched. . . a cracking read' - Viv Groskop, Observer
The gripping story of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, from an acclaimed historian and writer
On the morning of 26 April 1986 Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine. The outburst put the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation. In the end, less than five percent of the reactor's fuel escaped, but that was enough to contaminate over half of Europe with radioactive fallout.
In Chernobyl, Serhii Plokhy recreates these events in all of their drama, telling the stories of the firefighters, scientists, engineers, workers, soldiers, and policemen who found themselves caught in a nuclear Armageddon and succeeded in doing the seemingly impossible: extinguishing the nuclear inferno and putting the reactor to sleep. While it is clear that the immediate cause of the accident was a turbine test gone wrong, Plokhy shows how the deeper roots of Chernobyl lay in the nature of the Soviet political system and the flaws of its nuclear industry. A little more than five years later, the Soviet Union would fall apart, destroyed from within by its unsustainable communist ideology and the dysfunctional managerial and economic systems laid bare in the wake of the disaster.
A poignant, fast paced account of the drama of heroes, perpetrators, and victims, Chernobyl is the definitive history of the world's worst nuclear disaster.
Ratings and reviews
4.6
26 reviews
Mike Holbrough
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May 20, 2019
Gripping read if you are interested in the Chernobyl accident and the politics and decisions that led to it occurring. This book really does read like a thiller yet is 100% factual. Definitely recommended either as a standalone book or to accompany the current HBO/Sky UK Chernobyl dramatisation as it fills in a lot of gaps.
15 people found this review helpful
Lucia
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September 16, 2019
The book offers an all-encompassing history of the Chernobyl disaster and its causes. The aftermath is a chilling tale of heroism and the atom which doesn't bow down to man. The book ends in a warning: new nuclear power plants spawn around the world, most of them outside the western world which prides safety. The architects of the atom in these authoritarian countries won't play by the international rulebook when the next accident happens.
D Pryce
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August 21, 2018
A very insightful read. Tense and thrilling at the start, informative to the end
6 people found this review helpful
About the author
Serhii Plokhy is Professor of History at Harvard University and a leading authority on Eastern Europe whose previous books include Lost Kingdom, The Gates of Europe and The Last Empire. At the time of the Chernobyl explosion he lived behind the Iron Curtain less than 500 kilometres downstream of the damaged reactor.
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