Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe - Paperback

by Serhii Plokhy (Author)

A Chernobyl survivor and New York Times bestselling author delivers the definitive history of the worst nuclear accident in history.

"The most comprehensive and convincing history of Chernobyl yet to appear in English." ―Financial Times

On the morning of April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine exploded. The outburst put the region on the brink of nuclear annihilation and contaminated over half of Europe with radioactive fallout. In Chernobyl, Serhii Plokhy follows 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 inferno and putting the reactor to sleep. As Plokhy convincingly argues, the disaster was not just the result of a turbine test gone wrong, but also the failure of the Soviet political system and the prioritization of economic development over humanitarian concern. Chernobyl is the definitive history of the nuclear disaster, but also an urgent call to action by one of its survivors.

Author Biography

Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History and director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. The New York Times bestselling author of The Gates of Europe and Nuclear Folly, Plokhy is an award-winning author of numerous books. He lives in Burlington, Massachusetts.