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Sebastian Ritscher
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CHERNOBYL

Serhii Plokhy

The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe

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.

Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History and director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. The author of The Gates of Europe and The Man with the Poison Gun, most recently, Plokhy is an award-winning author of numerous books. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts.
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Published 2018-05-15 by Basic Books

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Chernobyl has won the 2019 Pushkin House Book Prize, an award which Plokhy first won for The Last Empire. Read more...

Serhii Plokhy provides the definitive story of the Chernobyl crisis and its aftermath, skillfully covering all angles from the scientific story, the humanitarian and economic costs of the clean-up, the manner in which the explosion forced Gorbachev to jump-start his perestroika reforms, and the igniting of Ukrainian nationalism.

Haunting.Plokhy's.voice is humane and inflected with nostalgia. His Chernobyl and Prypiat emerge vividly - as perhaps all disaster-afflicted cities must - as shattered idylls.

Lessons Of The Soviet Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, On KZYX Renewable Energy Hour - interview Read more...

Plokhy.documents the catastrophe and its effects on reemerging Ukrainian and Russian nationalism in this probing and sensitive investigative history. Read more...

Gripping, meticulously researched...[Mr. Plokhy] mercilessly chronicles the absurdities of the Soviet system and the arrogance of its apparatchiks. But the fact that he grew up fewer than 500 kilometers south of Chernobyl probably accounts for his vividly empathetic descriptions of the people on the groundthe plant managers and employees, the firefighters, soldiers and others - who risked their lives to contain the damage. Read more...

Plokhy.is a brilliant interpreter not only of the events themselves but of their long-term historical significance.As moving as it is painstakingly researched, this book is a tour de force and a cracking read.

The most comprehensive exploration of the events that led to the Chernobyl disaster. Engrossing.

WAMC The Roundtable (Albany, NY) - interview Read more...

Historian Serhii Plokhy's deft, richly detailed account draws on newly opened archives and weaves in stories of players such as Chernobyl director Viktor Briukhanov. Read more...

How the Chernobyl disaster stands as a warning... Read more...

UK: Allen Lane / Penguin ; Chinese (simpl.): Guangdong People's Publishing House ; Czech: Nakladatelstvi Jota ; Estonia: Postimees ; Italy: Rizzoli ; Lithuania: Briedis ; Poland: ZNAK ; Romania: Editura Trei ; Russia: Novoe Izdatelstvo ; Ukraine: Folio

[Plokhy] shows how Chernobyl embodied the Soviet system's failings, and in turn played a role in the system's collapse.It is Mr. Plokhy's book that will endure as a definitive history. Read more...

CHERNOBYL is one of three books reviewed in the April 4 issue of the New York Review of Books: ...a masterful account of how the USSR's bureaucratic dysfunction, censorship, and impossible economic targets produced the disaster and hindered the response to it.... Read more...

Serhii Plokhy has produced a highly readable account of the Chernobyl disaster and its political impact. It is destined to be the authoritative account for years to come.

A history of the nuclear disaster that set precedents - and standards - for future mishaps of the kind.Plokhy.concludes that even in the wake of Chernobyl, we have not gotten much better at containing meltdowns.A thoughtful study of catastrophe, unintended consequences, and, likely, nuclear calamities to come. Read more...

A masterful account of how the USSR's bureaucratic dysfunction, censorship, and impossible economic targets produced the disaster and hindered the response. Read more...

Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute published a Q&A with Serhii Plokhy ahead of the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster on April 26. Read more...

[Plokhy] casts his lyrical eye on a vast amount of detail, giving readers a sense of dramatic urgency that makes his account difficult to put down.The further Chernobyl recedes in time, Plokhy writes, the more it fades into myth. His book, however, should help bring us back to reality.

Compelling.Plokhy's well-paced narrative plunges the reader into the sweaty, nervous tension of the Chernobyl control room on the fateful night when human frailty and design flaws combined to such devastating effect. Read more...

The first comprehensive history of the Chernobyl disaster.here at last is the monumental history the disaster deserves.

Serhii Plokhy is uniquely qualified to tell this tragic story: he writes not only as a major historian, but also as someone who was living with his family under the cloud of the Chernobyl disaster at the time. The result is as riveting as a novel.

An important work that offers a clear-eyed assessment of the disaster and its consequences... Plokhy tells the story with great assurance and style, and the majority of his material appears here for the first time in English.

A work of deep scholarship and powerful storytelling. Plokhy is the master of the telling detail.

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.

Serhii Plokhy's CHERNOYBL has won the 2018 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction. This prestigious UK award comes with a £30,000 purse. Read more...