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

基本信息

Hardcover: 560 pages

Publisher: Simon & Schuster (February 12, 2019)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1501134612

ISBN-13: 978-1501134616

Product Dimensions: 140 x 211 x 33mm | 454g

頁面參數僅供參考，具體以實物為準

書籍簡介

《紐約時報》年度十佳好書

《紐約時報》年度十大好書（非虛構類）

科克斯書評十佳非虛構類好書

安德魯·卡內基文學獎

NPR2019年度*佳圖書之一

記者亞當·希金博特姆的關於切爾諾貝利核事故的這部紀實作品《午夜切爾諾貝利：世界*大規模核災難背後的故事》耗時多年，已於近期出版——本書有力地記錄了宣傳、保密以及傳説是如何掩蓋了這場可怕災難背後的真實情況。

1986年4月26日凌晨，切爾諾貝利核電站的第四號反應堆發生爆炸，引發了人類歷史上*嚴重的核災難。在此後的30年，切爾諾貝利已經成為全世界的集體夢魘：此地已經濃縮成了某些符號——核輻射幽靈般的恐懼，不受控制的危險技術，生態的脆弱性，還有當一個毫無誠信、粗心大意的國家讓它的民眾和整個世界陷入危險時會發生什麼。但是，關於這場事故的真相，由於從zui初就被保密、宣傳和錯誤信息等種種所掩蓋，長期都處於爭論之中。

《午夜切爾諾貝利：世界*大規模核災難背後的故事》的素材是來自亞當·希金博特姆十多年來進行的數百小時、80多次採訪，以及許多信件、未出版的回憶錄和近年來剛剛解密的檔案。受訪者包括科學家、卡車司機、消防員、醫生、寡婦還有幸存者。希金博特姆的敍述令人痛徹心扉，同時又引人入勝，他通過當年親歷之人的雙眼，將這場災難栩栩如生地再現，將這本書變成了一部非虛構的驚悚作品。與蘇聯的傳説相比，真相更為複雜、更有人性，也更加駭人聽聞。

Higginbotham對社會政治話題的處理也比較老道。在他的筆下，20世紀70年代的前蘇聯並不那麼沉悶壓抑：在許多前蘇聯人民眼中，社會流動性是存在的，篳路藍縷創造新的城市、工廠和社區也讓人有滿足感，他們為作為一項大型社會實驗的一份子而感到激動萬分。

Higginbotham對切爾諾貝利事件後的清掃工作的描寫讓我們理解，對危機事件的未雨綢繆是多麼重要，保存和累積災難應對經驗是多麼關鍵。理解災難的發生需要科學和技術背景，但是災難應對措施則要求更高，要有對當地的瞭解以及生活經驗。他表明，這些知識是多麼難以捉摸，而在災難應對的每個層次（物料、技術、科學、組織甚至心理）都免不了進行大量猜測。核燃料去哪兒了？會不會再次爆炸？要動員誰，年輕的士兵，還是中年後備役軍人？

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

One of NPR’s Best Books of 2019

Journalist Adam Higginbotham’s definitive, years-in-the-making account of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster—and a powerful investigation into how propaganda, secrecy, and myth have obscured the true story of one of the twentieth century’s greatest disasters.

Early in the morning of April 26, 1986, Reactor Number Four of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station exploded, triggering history’s worst nuclear disaster. 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Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews conducted over the course of more than ten years, as well as letters, unpublished memoirs, and documents from recently-declassified archives, Adam Higginbotham has written a harrowing and compelling narrative which brings the disaster to life through the eyes of the men and women who witnessed it firsthand. The result is a masterful nonfiction thriller, and the definitive account of an event that changed history: a story that is more complex, more human, and more terrifying than the Soviet myth.

Midnight in Chernobyl is an indelible portrait of one of the great disasters of the twentieth century, of human resilience and ingenuity, and 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.

媒體推薦

" Superb, enthralling and necessarily terrifying . . . the accident unfurls with a horrible inevitability. Weaving together the experiences of those who were there that night, Higginbotham marshals the details so meticulously that every step feels spring-loaded with tension. . . . Amid so much rich reporting and scrupulous analysis, some major themes emerge. . . . Higginbotham’s extraordinary book is another advance in the long struggle to fill in some of the gaps, bringing much of what was hidden into the light." —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

“A gripping miss-your-subway-stop read . . . Higginbotham captures the nerve-racked Soviet atmosphere brilliantly.” —The New York Times Book Review

"A compelling, panoramic account."—The Christian Science Monitor

“An account that reads almost like the * for a movie . . . Mr. Higginbotham has captured the terrible drama.” —The Wall Street Journal

"Midnight in Chernobyl is top-notch historical narrative: a tense, fast-paced, engrossing, and revelatory product of more than a decade of research. . . . A stunningly detailed account . . . For all its wealth of information, the work never becomes overwhelming or difficult to follow. Higginbotham humanizes the tale, maintaining a focus on the people involved and the choices, both heroic and not, they made in unimaginable circumstances. This is an essential human tale with global consequences."—Booklist, Starred Review 

"Written with authority, this superb book reads like a classic disaster story and reveals a Soviet empire on the brink. . . . [A] vivid and exhaustive account.”—Kirkus, Starred Review

"This is a highly detailed, carefully documented, beautifully narrated telling of this breathtakingly complex accident and its mitigation. Higginbotham’s handling of the sociopolitical context is also deft." —Nature

“In chilling detail, this book recounts the many missteps of their response to the disaster. . . . Higginbotham compellingly suggests that these flaws all but predicted the calamity—and, in turn, the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.” —The New Yorker

"There has been much reporting about the disaster, but no book has so ably and artfully captured the whole story of what happened that night and in the months and years that followed. With meticulous details, careful research and a gripping narrative, Midnight in Chernobyl is a must-read about nuclear power and the end of the Soviet Union." —Time

"Midnight in Chernobyl is wonderful and chilling. . . . Adam Higginbotham tells the story of the disaster and its gruesome aftermath with thriller-like flair. . . . It is a tale of hubris and doomed ambition, featuring Communist party bosses and hapless engineers, victims and villains, confusion and cover-up." —The Guardian

"A riveting, deeply reported reconstruction . . . In this powerful work of reportage, Chernobyl and its aftermath emerge as the Soviet Union’s last stand, containing all the pathologies and passion of that social experiment now lost to history." —The Los Angeles Times

作者簡介

亞當·希金波坦，英國作家，美國曆史學家。

Adam Higginbotham is a British writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ and Smithsonian. He is the author of MIDNIGHT IN CHERNOBYL. He lives in New York.