2011 Books – The Truth About Chernobyl

If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you know that I read just about anything regarding the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Well, there’s been a book that I’ve had my eye on for over a year… the price has usually been too high for me to justify its purchase, and when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant incident happened back in March of this year, the price of this book jumped to over $4500 on Amazon – for a used book.

I ended up getting my copy for around $20 once the fervor died down. The book is called The Truth About Chernobyl by Grigori Medvedev. And why did I want this book? And why were people willing to pay so much for it during the Fukushima Daiichi crisis? Well, Grigori Medvedev was at Chernobyl, and this book records, minute by minute (if not second by second) what happened.

The reason this book is important is because he not only revealed what happened, he knew the flaws in the design; he knew that the government had covered up many other lesser incidents; he had been a deputy chief engineer at Chernobyl (long before the meltdown); and he was the one called in to find out what happened to Reactor 4.

Every book I’ve read about Chernobyl, without exception, quotes this man and this book. He was able to talk to the first victims before they died of radiation poisoning. He had an inside track on how things worked. He knew the physics. He knew many of the men personally. So he takes the reader through the lives of the men at the plant… the decisions made (most of them faulty), gives us insight into the temperament of the person and how that caused problems… and shows exactly what happened.

Medvedev pulls no punches. His anger at the stupidity of certain persons is shown – you can almost see him seething and trembling to control his outrage; and his respect for those who gave their lives to save others – not knowing what the radiation would do to them – shines through just as vividly.

Would this book have been worth the $4500 some paid during Fukushima? From the detailed description of what happened, probably, though I can’t imagine any nuclear physicist who doesn’t already have this book. But beyond the physics is the story of humans behind the accident… in more detail than any other book I’ve read. It’s a very human story and well worth the read.

The Truth About Chernobyl is a fantastic book. I also recommend The Legacy of Chernobyl by Zhores Medvedev (no relation to Grigori) which I reviewed earlier this year.