Overview

From a preeminent historian of Eastern Europe, the definitive history of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster On the morning of April 26, 1986, Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine. Dozens died of radiation poisoning, fallout contaminated half the continent, and thousands fell ill. In Chernobyl, Serhii Plokhy draws on new sources to tell the dramatic stories of the firefighters, scientists, and soldiers who heroically extinguished the nuclear inferno. He lays bare the flaws of the Soviet nuclear industry, tracing the disaster to the authoritarian character of Communist party rule, the regime's control of scientific information, and its emphasis on economic development over all else. Today, the risk of another Chernobyl looms in the mismanagement of nuclear power in the developing world. A moving and definitive account, Chernobyl is also an urgent call to action.

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9781549116292

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Serhii Plokhy provides the definitive story of the Chernobyl crisis and its aftermath. -- Andrew Wilson, professor of Ukrainian studies, University College London A lucid account of how the Soviet mania for nuclear power combined with endemic shoddiness in the industrial sector and near-paranoid habits of state secrecy led to the 1986 disaster...The most comprehensive and convincing history of Chernobyl yet to appear in English. -- Financial Times (London) The Ukrainian-born Plokhy-now a Harvard history professor-was a student living less than 300 miles from the site in 1986, and this book has a strong personal angle. Using new archive material, it is also a work of deep scholarship and powerful storytelling. Plokhy is a master of the telling detail. -- Times (London) Gripping, meticulously researched...[with] vividly empathetic descriptions of the people on the ground-the plant managers and employees, the firefighters, soldiers and others-who risked their lives to contain the damage. -- Wall Street Journal

The Ukrainian-born Plokhy-now a Harvard history professor-was a student living less than 300 miles from the site in 1986, and this book has a strong personal angle. Using new archive material, it is also a work of deep scholarship and powerful storytelling. Plokhy is a master of the telling detail. -- Times (London) Serhii Plokhy provides the definitive story of the Chernobyl crisis and its aftermath. -- Andrew Wilson, professor of Ukrainian studies, University College London Gripping, meticulously researched...[with] vividly empathetic descriptions of the people on the ground-the plant managers and employees, the firefighters, soldiers and others-who risked their lives to contain the damage. -- Wall Street Journal A lucid account of how the Soviet mania for nuclear power combined with endemic shoddiness in the industrial sector and near-paranoid habits of state secrecy led to the 1986 disaster...The most comprehensive and convincing history of Chernobyl yet to appear in English. -- Financial Times (London)

Author Information

Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History and director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. A leading authority on Eastern Europe, he has lived and taught in Ukraine, Canada, and the United States. He is the author of ten books, including the award-winning The Last Empire, which received the Lionel Gelber Prize, the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize, and the Antonovych Ukrainian Book Prize. Ralph Lister is an actor, voice actor, and AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator. He spent fifteen years in London theater before moving to the United States to focus on film and television. He has held numerous roles in Shakespeare and modern dramas, as well as starring roles in independent films. His voice and character work can be heard in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearland 13 Going On 30. He lives in Los Angeles.

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