Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy
A dramatic, minute-by-minute account of one of the most shattering events of the Cold War, from an award-winning historian.
On the morning of 26 April 1986 Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine. The outburst put the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation. In the end, less than five percent of the reactor's fuel escaped, but that was enough to contaminate over half of Europe with radioactive fallout.
In Chernobyl , Serhii Plokhy recreates these events in all of their drama, telling 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 nuclear inferno and putting the reactor to sleep. While it is clear that the immediate cause of the accident was a turbine test gone wrong, Plokhy shows how the deeper roots of Chernobyl lay in the nature of the Soviet political system and the flaws of its nuclear industry. A little more than five years later, the Soviet Union would fall apart, destroyed from within by its unsustainable communist ideology and the dysfunctional managerial and economic systems laid bare in the wake of the disaster.
A poignant, fast paced account of the drama of heroes, perpetrators, and victims, Chernobyl is the definitive history of the world's worst nuclear disaster.
About the Author
Serhii Plokhy is Professor of History at Harvard University and a leading authority on Eastern Europe whose previous books include Lost Kingdom, The Gates of Europe and The Last Empire. At the time of the Chernobyl explosion he lived behind the Iron Curtain less than 500 kilometres downstream of the damaged reactor.
Format: Paperback | 432 pages
Dimensions (cm): 19.8 x 12.9 x 2.6 | 320g
Publication Date: 07 May 2019
Publisher: Penguin Random House UK
Imprint: Penguin Books
Publication City/Country: London, United Kingdom
Language: English
Illustrations note: b&w maps
ISBN10: 0141988355
ISBN13: 9780141988351
Condition: Good
A book that has been read but is in good condition. Very minimal damage to the cover including minor scuff marks and scratching, but no holes or tears. All pages are undamaged with no creasing or tearing, no pencil underlining of text, no highlighting of text, no writing in margins. The book has a slight bend in it; it's very subtle and in no way compromises the legibility or understanding of the text. No missing pages.