Chernobyl

Chernobyl

By Serhii Plokhy
Unabridged
$25.60 $31.99
Save 20.0%
Quantity:
Add to wishlist
window.theme = window.theme || {}; window.theme.preorder_products_on_page = window.theme.preorder_products_on_page || [];

“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

An Amazon.com bestseller in energy policy

A Literary Hub Pick of the week

Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize

A BookRiot Pick of 6 Best Nonfiction Books about the Chernobyl Disaster

Winner of Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, 2018

From an award-winning historian and Chernobyl survivor, a visceral account of the worst nuclear accident in history.

"Vividly empathetic." -Wall Street Journal

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 the Communist party rule, the regime's control over 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.