Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy

This historical nonfiction account reconstructs the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 through technical failure, Soviet secrecy, decisions on the ground, and the experience of victims. It moves beyond the explosion itself to evacuation, information control, and political consequences, showing the dangers created when nuclear technology meets state power.

ChernobylSoviet historynuclear accidentinformation controldisaster politics

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Work Information

The reactor explosion was a failure of technology and also a failure of a state that closed off information.

Before dawn on April twenty-sixth, 1986, a reactor exploded in Soviet Ukraine. Drawing on opened archives, Plokhy follows plant engineers, firefighters, scientists, party officials, and residents to examine why the accident expanded and why it was concealed. No Japanese book edition was confirmed, so the Japanese identifiers are null.

Review Summaries

The book links the scientific and political background of the accident and follows the chain of tragedy with tense narration. It is valued for attending not only to institutional failure but also to the courage and sacrifice of people on the ground.

Book Information

Publisher: Allen Lane
Published: 2018-05-15
Pages: 432 pages
Language: 英語
Size: 16.2 x 3.8 x 24 cm
ISBN-13: 9780241349021
ISBN-10: 0241349028
Category: 洋書/History/Europe/Ukraine

WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2018 'An insightful and important book, that often reads like a good thriller, and that exposes the danger of mixing powerful technology with irresponsible politics' - Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens 'As moving as it is painstakingly researched. . . a cracking read' - Viv Groskop, Observer The gripping story of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, from an acclaimed historian and writer 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.

Serhii Plokhy is the author of Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy , which won the Baillie Gifford Prize and the Pushkin House Book Prize, and the New York Times bestseller The Gates of Europe. His many acclaimed books, including The Russo-Ukrainian War, Nuclear Folly and Atoms and Ashes , have been translated into over a dozen languages. He is Professor of History at Harvard University where he also serves as Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

Reviews

真実を伝えること。

自己対応の危機管理は現場の長の質で決まる。本部組織の命令、承認などと言ったものはほとんど役に立たない。全権を現場の与え、本部はお手伝いすることがあれば、遠慮なく言ってくれの立場に立つべきだ。事が大きいほど原因がなんであれ現場を罰していけない。現場を萎縮させては当面の自己対応がうまくいかなくなる。ただし、これはあくまでも現場の長が頭脳明晰で部下の尊敬を集めている人で、自己犠牲も厭わない人の場合だ。将来に出世のことしか考えていない人物はこういう場合全く役に立たないばかりか、有害だ。
Excellent storytelling, immersive.
This book provides an extremely detailed analysis of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Fascinating, horrifying, and intriguing in equal parts, this book is one you can't stop once you start. The night of the accident comes to life via vivid storytelling, always using the voices of those who were present during this horrific event. Bruikhanov comes across as a man who cared deeply about his job and staff but was made into a scapegoat to cover the gross negligence of the party who forced both Bruikhanov and the Builders of the reactor to cut corners to get the reactor online as quickly as possible. Diatlov, who comes across as an evil tempered villain in the Sky TV program, was not a nasty person at all. He was a tragic figure pressured into doing a test that should never have transpired. The cost of this tragedy is something that no one can measure in just roubles. The extent of human suffering from this accident even 30 odd years later has never fully been explored. The figures that the WHO gives for victims of the fallout, is, according to this book, a gross understatement. The number of people on benefits for fallout related illnesses is far higher. The question is, how many people were affected by Chernobyl? We may never know, but you can guarantee that the exact number is far higher than any agency is willing to admit. The book ends with a lesson. The specter of nuclear meltdown haunts us all, and since Fukushima Daiichi, we all understand that Chernobyl isn't just a freak event that can never happen again. Nuclear power is inherently dangerous, and regardless of what the proponents of this industry might say, there is always a chance that a meltdown event could happen again; Sobering reading indeed. I cannot recommend this book highly enough!
Segun el Economist, "la historia" de lo que sucedió en Chernobyl, probablemente algo novelada, pero explorando no sólo el accidente en sí, si no las presiones de Moscú y su politica de desarrollo y por tanto, de incremento desbocado de la producción energética, las intrigas en el partido, la escasa transparencia (glasnost?), la confusión de la población civil, las connotaciones en la separación posterior de Ukrania, los irreparables daños en las personas y la ecología, algunos de ellos por evaluar. Un gran libro.
Chernobyl. Ein Wort, das wie kein anderes für die Konsequenzen für Vertuschung und Missachtung der Realität steht. Serhii Plokhys Buch ist ein Meisterwerk, das wie kein anderes die dramatischen Ereignisse rund um die Katastrophe eindrucksvoll nachzeichnet. Die Schicksale, die Spannung und das Chaos jener schicksalhaften Nacht werden lebendig. Die technischen Mängel des RBMK-1000 und deren Gefährlichkeit werden aufgedeckt und die Inkompetenz des sowjetischen Systems gnadenlos beleuchtet. Das Buch bietet einen tiefen Einblick in die menschlichen Schicksale, die mit der Tragödie verbunden sind. Plokhy schildert die Geschichten der Helden, Opfer und Verantwortlichen mit einer solchen Intensität, dass man das Gefühl hat dabei zu sein, als erlebe man es selbst. Seine Erzählweise sucht seinesgleichen. Noch nie habe ich die Erzählung wahrer Begebenheiten so ergreifend empfinden können. Wer sich etwas mit der Geschichte von Chernobyl auskennt, versteht die unfassbar lange Kette an menschlichem Versagen der Verantwortlichen, der Konstrukteure, der Geheimdienste und politischen Emporkömmlinge, die in diesem Buch klug analysiert werden. Dass Plokhy zudem auf erst kürzlich freigegebenes Archivmaterial zurückgreift verleiht diesem Werk eine neue Tiefe und ist deshalb alleine schon ein Muss für alle Faszinierten von der ultimativen kerntechnischen und menschlichen Katastrophe, die nicht nur den Reaktor sprengte, sondern auch die Sowjetunion in den Jahren danach zu Fall brachte. So steht der 26. April 1986 für einer der entschiedensten Tage in der Menschheitsgeschichte, besonders der europäischen, dessen Folgen in den grundlegenden Ursachen des Reaktorunglücks begründet sind. Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy ist ein wichtiges Buch, das mich tief bewegt hat und weiterhin bewegt. Es ist Bildung in der wertvollsten Form, nämlich der unverzerrten Erzählung geschichtsentscheidender Erlebnisse. Das Buch ist nur zu empfehlen und findet in meinem Regal seinen Stammplatz. :)
I could resume my knowledge on the Chernobyl disaster as the result of a few dramatized documentaries I watched on tv. Normally these documentaries did a good job describing the steps, under a maintenance operation, that in April 86 led to the explosion of the reactor nr 4 of the Chernobyl's nuclear power plant. When I read the summary of this book it promised a wider perspective of the whole accident closely tied to the Soviet Union's political and economic reality back in the day. And it didn't disappoint. The book describes thoroughly not only the technical and operational aspects that triggered the accident but also the primordial role of the Soviet Union's political and heavily bureaucratic apparatus pressured dy a declining economy which created the ideal scenario for the accident and ultimately was unable to cope efficiently and openly with its consequences: - the reason why nuclear energy became a priority; - how this priority influenced the choice of the nuclear reactors adopted; - how the urgency about building new nuclear power plants in order to reach unrealistic goals and deadlines met with poor quality construction and a cheap and fast approach in detriment of a reliable and safe one; - how the communist hierarchies which excelled at avoiding responsibilities delayed immediate evacuation of populations and kept the incident's consequences, namely radiation poisoning, hidden from millions of people both inside and outside the iron curtain. The author's writing style is engaging making its reading a pleasant and enriching experience without becoming boring or biased when describing the USSR's system. Due to the book's main subject, technical parentheses about the physics of nuclear process and radiation, are at times required but kept accessible so that nobody will have trouble understanding them.