Midnight in Chernobyl

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear

【Editor's Recommendation】
★ Nearly 30,000 people on the famous reading website Goodreads gave it a high score of 4.38, praising "Midnight in Chernobyl as one of the best non-fiction books you can read."
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★ Highly recommended by leading European and American writers and scholars, including Pulitzer Prize winner and author of "Gulag: A History," Anne Applebaum;
Craig Mazin, creator of the HBO drama "Chernobyl": I feel very sorry that I didn't read the book before filming.
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It vividly tells the story of one of history's worst disasters, while also allowing us to see the puzzling realities of the daily events that unfolded in the final years of the Soviet Union.
—Anne Applebaum (Pulitzer Prize winner)
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This book is a valuable contribution to history and an exceptionally well-told story about a world-renowned event like Chernobyl.
— Shahili Puloki
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Chernobyl, the eternal nightmare of human civilization: Over a decade of in-depth investigation by leading journalists, hundreds of hours of interview recordings, and the first exposure of a wealth of archives, letters, and memoirs offer a panoramic view of the entire process of this devastating nuclear disaster of our time.
Author Adam Higginbotham is a veteran reporter for The New Yorker, known for his mastery of storytelling and his ability to dig up and apply material. The book is meticulously annotated, with over a hundred pages of notes alone. His use of material is as solid and rigorous as that of an academic work, yet as readable as a thriller.
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Capturing science and humanity in a story of hubris and doomed failure; no heroes here, everyone has a face:
The book is filled with portraits of people, stories gathered from the author's more than a decade of interviewing people who experienced the disaster. These people have long been forgotten by their countries and compatriots, including high-ranking Soviet officials, whistleblowers, rescue heroes, medical personnel, accident cleanup workers, and those who later stood trial.
The author focuses on the people involved and how they make difficult decisions in the face of sudden disasters. It represents a cross-section of Soviet society, exposing the cowardice and bravery of individual human beings. What is ultimately obtained is a story that is more complex, more humane, and more terrifying than the Soviet legend.
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★More heartbreaking than any horror movie, more thrilling than any thriller novel;
Despite providing a massive amount of information, this book is not daunting. The author has a broad vision, ingenious ideas, and precise grasp of details, which makes every step of the story full of tension. The narrative style like a thriller makes this book extremely readable.
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★Winned the annual lists of many first-line European and American media: Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of the Year, New York Times and Time Magazine Book of the Year, and the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medal;
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【Content Introduction】
Adam Higginbotham's definitive account of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, a labor of love and thorough investigation, reveals how political propaganda, shrouded in secrecy, and widespread misinformation helped to conceal the truth about one of the twentieth century's greatest disasters.
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In the early morning hours of April 26, 1986, the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Power Plant exploded, triggering one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. In the three decades since, Chernobyl has become a haunting nightmare for the world: the lingering threat of radiation poisoning, the immense risk of a dangerous technology running amok, the fragility of the ecosystem, and the damage done to its citizens and the world at large. However, the truth behind the accident was shrouded in secrecy from the outset, leaving much debate and controversy.
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Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews conducted over more than a decade, supplemented by correspondence, unpublished memoirs, and recently declassified archival documents, Adam Higginbotham transforms the devastation firsthand into an objective, dispassionate, and revealing account. The result is a breathtaking masterpiece of nonfiction, a story more complex, more human, and more terrifying than the Soviet legend itself.

2021-03-01

广西师范大学出版社

mountain

552

9787559834027