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Chernobyl: The Ongoing Story of the World's Deadliest Nuclear Disaster
The 1986 explosion at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl was a human as well as environmental catastrophe, and this thorough account of the accident examines its causes, the response of the Soviet government, and the tragic aftermath of a horror that still lives on.
Library Binding
First published October 31, 1994
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About the author
Glenn Alan Cheney
89 books64 followersGlenn Alan Cheney is a writer and journalist. He is the author of more than 20 books of fiction and nnfiction and hundreds of articles, op-ed essays, translations, short stories, and poems.
Among his most recent and well known books are "Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims' First Year in America," "Journey on the Estrada Real: Encounters in he Mountains of Brazil," and "Journey to Chernobyl: Encounters in a Radioactive Zone."
Cheney is editor and translator of "Ex Cathedra: Stories by Machado de Assis -- Bilingual Edition."
Cheney's nonfiction uses a strong human element and touches of humor to bring life into subjects that might otherwise be dull or technical.
Cheney has a B.A. in Philosophy, an MA in Communication, an MA in English, and an MFA in Creative Writing.
See cheneybooks.com for free excerpts and discounts on Cheney titles.
Among his most recent and well known books are "Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims' First Year in America," "Journey on the Estrada Real: Encounters in he Mountains of Brazil," and "Journey to Chernobyl: Encounters in a Radioactive Zone."
Cheney is editor and translator of "Ex Cathedra: Stories by Machado de Assis -- Bilingual Edition."
Cheney's nonfiction uses a strong human element and touches of humor to bring life into subjects that might otherwise be dull or technical.
Cheney has a B.A. in Philosophy, an MA in Communication, an MA in English, and an MFA in Creative Writing.
See cheneybooks.com for free excerpts and discounts on Cheney titles.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 17, 2019
Book 26 of Nuclear Studies:
A lot of the books I have and have read so far about nuclear things are very old books. I’m not sure if my readings are an accurate sampling of the availability of the literature or not but these older reads are some of my favorites. This is because of the time capsule that each of these older books are. I certainly don’t know what it was like to live in the world less than a decade after the Chernobyl accident, so to have that perspective is certainly something I desire.
That being said, these older books can be difficult. I am more skeptical of the information they tout as fact, keeping my trust phone nearby to fact check. This can lead to some interesting rabbit trails (one 1980s book I previously read had some interesting conspiracy theories in it that were quickly debunked) but it can also reveal the gaps in knowledge. Such flaws make these books valuable primarily for their windows into the past rather than being good reference points.
This book is a short, easy read. The author breaks down the accident and how the RBMK reactors work in an easy to understand style. He also expands his viewpoint with each chapter, demonstrating the effects of the accident on increasingly wider scales, which I found incredibly effective. However, there are portions that are outdated due to knowledge holes from the time it was written. Two things bothered me most. The author likened nuclear power plants to being potential atomic bombs. This is a real pet peeve of mine that I keep running into in my studies. Such assertions only serve to confuse rather than educate and they are often found in books that have an anti-nuclear bent. The second thing that bothered me was that the author delved just slightly into a link between nuclear leakage and Lyme disease. I’d never heard anything so bizarre and a quick google search only turned up one real hit on a website devoted to fighting cancer the natural way (not a site that I’d necessarily trust).
Anyways, in conclusion, this one is a relic of the past. Read it as if it’s 1994.
A lot of the books I have and have read so far about nuclear things are very old books. I’m not sure if my readings are an accurate sampling of the availability of the literature or not but these older reads are some of my favorites. This is because of the time capsule that each of these older books are. I certainly don’t know what it was like to live in the world less than a decade after the Chernobyl accident, so to have that perspective is certainly something I desire.
That being said, these older books can be difficult. I am more skeptical of the information they tout as fact, keeping my trust phone nearby to fact check. This can lead to some interesting rabbit trails (one 1980s book I previously read had some interesting conspiracy theories in it that were quickly debunked) but it can also reveal the gaps in knowledge. Such flaws make these books valuable primarily for their windows into the past rather than being good reference points.
This book is a short, easy read. The author breaks down the accident and how the RBMK reactors work in an easy to understand style. He also expands his viewpoint with each chapter, demonstrating the effects of the accident on increasingly wider scales, which I found incredibly effective. However, there are portions that are outdated due to knowledge holes from the time it was written. Two things bothered me most. The author likened nuclear power plants to being potential atomic bombs. This is a real pet peeve of mine that I keep running into in my studies. Such assertions only serve to confuse rather than educate and they are often found in books that have an anti-nuclear bent. The second thing that bothered me was that the author delved just slightly into a link between nuclear leakage and Lyme disease. I’d never heard anything so bizarre and a quick google search only turned up one real hit on a website devoted to fighting cancer the natural way (not a site that I’d necessarily trust).
Anyways, in conclusion, this one is a relic of the past. Read it as if it’s 1994.
January 23, 2019
Interesting. I had no idea that this was a preventable accident. Even though it is an older book, the information was very good. We live with this event still today.
October 6, 2012
It's a little all over the place in terms of the timeline - easy to get confused. But an interesting take on the disaster only seven years afterward.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews