Chernobyl
Ratings9
Average rating4.2
A Chernobyl survivor and the New York Times bestselling author of The Gates of Europe "mercilessly chronicles the absurdities of the Soviet system" in this "vividly empathetic" account of the worst nuclear accident in history (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.
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Way too many names and government agencies to keep track of [like Tom Clancy's novels]. The science is, for the most part, at a level a lay person can understand and the author does a good job of keeping the many storylines running in parallel without too much confusion. I appreciated that he did mini reintroductions [intentional or not] as that brought the person quickly back into perspective for me.
You get a sense of how much time he spent on this book when you take a look at how thick the Notes section is; looks to be almost a quarter of the book!
This book really helped me appreciate a recent tour I took of 1 nuclear plant being constructed and 1 of its neighbors that had been working for quite some time. I did have an adrenaline jolt when they said they'd done a test that morning.
