| View Larger Image | The Truth About Chernobyl | Paperbackby Grigori Medvedev (Author)
| List Price: | $12.00 | |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Basic Books | | Page Count: | 288 Pages | | Publication Date: | July 01, 1992 | | Sales Rank: | 354,580th |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Grigori Medvedev, a former chief engineer at Chernobyl, was commissioned by the Soviets to investigate the nuclear accident that took place on April 26, 1986. This is Medvedev's own minute-by-minute account of both the disaster and the cover-up. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 13 reviews)
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Misinformation by O. Lytvyn (NJ, USA)  2 Stars
November 09, 2009
This is the same "documentary" book Medvedev publushed in Russian in 1989. Quite entertaining, but also quite confusing and often misinforming where it touches on the causes of the disaster. It follows the official line of putting all the blame on the station personnel ("thankfully", most of the shift personnel died soon after the catastrophe from radiation sickness). It almost completely sidetracks the real cause: the faulty reactor design which made it uncontrollable under the circumstances.
If you feel confused when reading about "operational reactivity reserve" -- don't be. The author is either confused himself, or is trying (not very successfully) to cover the inadequacies of the official analysis. Too bad the Anatoly Dyatlov's book (the deputy chief engineer, one of the few first-hand participants who lived long enough to write about the disaster) wasn't ever translated from Russian.
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"Science Requires Victims." by Robert I. Hedges  4 Stars
April 19, 2009
In "The Truth About Chernobyl" Grigori Medvedev, Soviet nuclear scientist and technical insider, provides a first person insider's perspective into the destruction of the Chernobyl Number Four reactor in April, 1986. The account has been translated into English and no doubt loses some of its nuance in the translation. As it is, it is a gripping account from a man who knew many of the key players and had himself formerly been a senior engineer at the Chernobyl plant.
The book reads like a first-person system safety book: it details the chain of errors and design shortcomings that led to the disaster, explaining the significance of each. Subsequent to the accident, Medvedev then goes on to discuss the heroism displayed by operators, firefighters, helicopter pilots, and others in the aftermath of the disaster. The book has a technical bent, and while it often explains things in prose that can be grasped by non-technical lay readers, it frequently fails to define terms or provide important background information about nuclear plant components or radiation science. Certainly the text would have benefited from a chapter defining terms and explaining the components, and illustrations would have certainly helped the reader grasp the key points that were sometimes elusive. Along these same lines is the use of English abbreviations for obscure Soviet directorates (e.g. "Yuzhatomenergomontazh," "Glavstroy," "Soyuzatomenergo," etc.), which made the actual lines of communication and chain of command very confusing.
The book has many strong points, the single biggest of which is Medvedev's personal knowledge of the station and the personnel involved. As such it is certainly worth reading, but understand that much time has elapsed since the book was written, and some parts of the book, most particularly casualty numbers and rates, are contradicted by more recent epidemiological studies. The book is an excellent indictment of the Soviet nuclear industry, and RBMK type plants in particular. While I consider myself pragmatically pro-nuclear power, there is no question that RBMK plants such as Chernobyl were designed and built to much more lax safety standards than plants in any of the western countries: the lack of a reinforced containment building is but one of the intrinsic and troubling differences. The book is correct in pointing out faulty assumptions and very poor safety culture in the Soviet nuclear industry at the time, and as such the book stands as a vital volume in any professional safety library.
The Soviet reaction to the disaster was initially to hide factual information from the public about the seriousness of the hazards involved, causing a further public health calamity. The chairman of the State Committee on the Use of Nuclear Power, A.M. Petrosyants, went as far as to say that "science requires victims" as a justification for the accident and the communist government's reaction to it. Medvedev accurately noted (p.205) "He thought this was a very intelligent remark, but it really sounded blasphemous and stupid. People were dying." This kind of distillation of the issues to the most elemental level distinguishes this book among its peers, and makes it worth reading.
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Good, but it could have been great. by M. Weaver (Brooklyn, NY)  3 Stars
December 01, 2008
This book has fantastic first person accounts of the Chernobyl disaster by people who watched it happen, and was written by a man intimately familiar with the power plant, the people involved and the response to the disaster. It gives great insight into the personalities that shaped the events leading up to the disaster, and opens the door to places and events we would otherwise be ignorant of. What this book doesn't have is a solid narrative, illustrations to assist with descriptions of the plant and it's environs or good explanations of the technical aspects of nuclear power - even when an understanding of such matters would be crucial to comprehend what he is describing.
Mr. Medvedev did a great job in creating this account but he was failed by his editor and translator.
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Informative and Enjoyable by Macilwen (Cornland)  5 Stars
May 25, 2007
I really enjoyed this book. As a teenager with a morbid interest in nuclear accidents like Chernobyl, Medvedev gave a perfect amount of detail and information while making his account readable. This book is very well-written, which I didn't expect when I checked it out. It reads almost like a novel rather than like a non-fiction book. However, like others have said, it doesn't give a lot of definition for things like nuclear measurements (I must admit, I looked for a glossary when I saw the word "roetgen").
All in all, a great book and a pleasant surprise.
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"Counting lives" meant "killing people" by Marshall Fritz (Fresno, CA United States) 4 Stars
March 17, 2007
Those who wish to hide the truth delight
in creating new vocabulary to hide behind.
On p 234, Medvedev writes:
"...the phrase 'counting lives' had
acquired a new meaning." The meaning
was the number of men to be killed
in a procedure being considered.
However, I was disappointed he didn't
mention "bio-robots," the euphemism for
men sent to handle the fuel rods w/o
any protection.
I agree with other reviews that the
author (a) is a good writer and the
story moves right along, and (b) he
assumes that the readers knows a bit
more about nuclear measurements than
most of us do.
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