*WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2018**WINNER OF THE PUSHKIN HOUSE BOOK
PRIZE 2019*'As moving as it is painstakingly researched. . . a cracking read' Viv Groskop
Observer'A riveting account of human error and state duplicity. . . rightly being hailed as a
classic' Hannah Betts Daily TelegraphOn 26 April 1986 at 1.23am a reactor at the Chernobyl
Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine exploded. While the authorities scrambled to understand
what was occurring workers engineers firefighters and those living in the area were
abandoned to their fate. The blast put the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation
contaminating over half of Europe with radioactive fallout.In Chernobyl award-winning
historian Serhii Plokhy draws on recently opened archives to recreate these events in all their
drama. A moment by moment account of the heroes perpetrators and victims of a tragedy
Chernobyl is the first full account of a gripping unforgettable Cold War story.'A compelling
history of the 1986 disaster and its aftermath . . . plunges the reader into the sweaty
nervous tension of the Chernobyl control room on that fateful night when human frailty and
design flaws combined to such devastating effect' Daniel Beer Guardian'Haunting ...
near-Tolstoyan. His voice is humane and inflected with nostalgia' Roland Elliott Brown
Spectator 'Extraordinary vividly written powerful storytelling ... the first full-scale
history of the world's worst nuclear disaster one of the defining moments in the Cold War
told minute by minute' Victor Sebestyen Sunday Times'Plays out like a classical tragedy ...
fascinating' Julian Evans Daily Telegraph'Here at last is the monumental history the disaster
deserves' Julie McDowall The Times
