A review by schopflin
Atoms and Ashes by Serhii Plokhy

medium-paced

5.0

Absolutely excellent follow-up to the same author's Chernobyl. I am actually breathtaken to realise the risks taken in the post-war era, mostly for the sake of technological peacocking. Plokhiy tells the stories of the better-known disasters with the same fingertip-tension that he brought to his Chernobyl. His afterword is interesting. He is even-handed on the need for nuclear to take us away from fossil fuels and reduce carbon emissions. But I think he makes clear that the world is too politically unstable for something as dangerous as nuclear tractors to exist at all. But that's my take.