There’s no denying that 1986 was a year of tragedy, with two major disasters: the explosions of Space Shuttle Challenger in January and of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in April. Both were horrific in their own right and arguably could have been avoided. And while Challenger claimed seven lives in an instant, Chernobyl killed 30 over the course of three months with countless lives affected in the months and years thereafter.
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster
Author: Adam Higginbotham
Pages: 560
Format: Paperback
Published: February 12, 2019
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
View on Goodreads
Date Completed: January 5, 2025
My rating: 
Thoughts
This book was written by a journalist, so it is incredibly well-researched. So much so that in addition to a bibliography, there are over 100 pages of notes on who was interviewed, as well as when and where. This was clearly a passion project for Adam Higginbotham; in his acknowledgements he credits a couple different periodicals that he worked for that granted him funds and time to travel abroad to collect the stories for this book.
Anyone who has read my other reviews of non-fiction know that I prefer a certain chronological approach to telling these kinds of stories. However, in this case the author does a pretty good job of breaking the overarching story almost into little vignettes which focus on a specific person, team, or project. For example, one chapter details the Sarcophagus, which was started less than a month after the disaster and took 206 days to construct (although the chapter is placed in the latter half of the book).
Other than the loss of life and displacement of numerous people (not to mention those poor pets), the politics involved in this disaster may be the most sobering part of this story. Due to the nature of the government at the time (hopefully not so much the case now… hopefully), there was a lot of secrecy around any issues in Soviet nuclear reactors. The USSR wanted to be seen as the leading government with the safest and most reliable nuclear capabilities in the world. They didn’t want to be compared to the US after the Three Mile Island accident; incidently the US didn’t do the greatest job being forthcoming with information after Three Mile Island…
This book is beefy at over 500 pages, but the actual meat of the story is much less than that (remember all the back matter I mentioned earlier). At any rate, it is very much worth a read! I will say that I listened to the audiobook as I read along since I’m a dumb American and get caught up with the names and terms.
I saw the 2019 HBO miniseries back in 2022 and mistakenly thought it was based on this book. While that miniseries takes some creative liberties for the dramatization, it is still a fantastic watch. But I do feel like this book is the best account of the disaster that I’ve encountered so far.
The one thing – just one thing – I would have liked would be a detailed timeline of events of the disaster and the events that followed. Other than that, I can’t think of anything else that would have made this book better.
This book was 5 out of 5 stars (4.5 out of 5 if I’m being super critical… was that a reactor pun?!) and should be read by anyone who considers themselves a history buff. It is sad and infuriating throughout, but as we all know, those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it.
