Book Reviews: Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe. By Serhii Plokhy,. New York: Basic Books, 2018. 404 pp. Notes. Index. Illustrations. Photographs. Maps. $32.00, hard bound.

Abstract

Plokhy's book is strongest where he presents the engagement of Ukrainian leaders in the post-disaster decision-making process (especially chapter 18): he evokes the confusion, frustration, and resentment among those grappling with decisions that affected the public, for example, whether or not to hold a May Day parade in Kiev, while the radiation situation was unclear at best, and dangerous for human health at worst. [...]there were many channels for criticism within the Soviet system, including the KGB and the Communist Party—Viktor Sidorenko, one of the leading architects of the country's nuclear industry, has reconstructed many of them in his edited volumes (Istoriia atomnoi energetiki Sovetskogo Soiuza i Rossii, five volumes, Moscow, 2001–4). Overall, with the exception of the final section (part VI), this volume does not add much to the vast existing scholarship on Chernobyl; in fact, by overlooking so much of it, Plokhy's narrative presents a skewed view of the disaster's origins, powerful impacts, and lasting implications for the future of the world's nuclear industry, and for the Ukrainian state.