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Title details for Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham - Available

Midnight in Chernobyl

The Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster

by Adam Higginbotham
Jacques Roy
Audiobook
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1 of 1 copy available
One of AudioFile's Best Audiobooks of 2019!
A New York Times Best Book of the Year
A Time Best Book of the Year
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence Winner

From journalist Adam Higginbotham, the New York Times bestselling "account that reads almost like the script for a movie" (The Wall Street Journal)—a powerful investigation into Chernobyl and how propaganda, secrecy, and myth have obscured the true story of one of the history's worst nuclear disasters.
Early in the morning of April 26, 1986, Reactor Number Four of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station exploded, triggering one of the 20th century's greatest disasters. In the thirty years since then, Chernobyl has become lodged in the collective nightmares of the world: shorthand for the spectral horrors of radiation poisoning, for a dangerous technology slipping its leash, for ecological fragility, and for what can happen when a dishonest and careless state endangers its citizens and the entire world. But the real story of the accident, clouded from the beginning by secrecy, propaganda, and misinformation, has long remained in dispute.

Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews conducted over the course of more than ten years, as well as letters, unpublished memoirs, and documents from recently-declassified archives, Adam Higginbotham brings the disaster to life through the eyes of the men and women who witnessed it firsthand. The result is a "riveting, deeply reported reconstruction" (Los Angeles Times) and a definitive account of an event that changed history: a story that is more complex, more human, and more terrifying than the Soviet myth.

"The most complete and compelling history yet" (The Christian Science Monitor), Higginbotham's "superb, enthralling, and necessarily terrifying...extraordinary" (The New York Times) book is an indelible portrait of the lessons learned when mankind seeks to bend the natural world to his will—lessons which, in the face of climate change and other threats, remain not just vital but necessary.

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  • Awards

  • Release date

    February 12, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781508278511
      • File size: 401235 KB
      • Duration: 13:55:54

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Jacques Roy's nuanced performance of Higginbotham's harrowing audiobook keeps listeners deeply engaged. In 1986, the Russian nuclear plant at Chernobyl failed. The result was a disaster of a global scale, with the details surrounding the event unclear until now. Many characters are involved up and down the chain of command--from the technical staff at the plant all the way up to President Gorbachev. Higginbotham's detailed account of the moment-to-moment events of the disaster are engrossing, including the decisions not to evacuate the surrounding city right away up through eventual plans to seal off the site by any means necessary. Roy's masterful narration enhances this stark and terrifying account of one of the worst disasters in human history. S.P.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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