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Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster
Andrew Leatherbarrow · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorMidnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
Adam Higginbotham · 538 pages
Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats
Kristen Iversen · 416 pages
Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima
James Mahaffey · 464 pages
Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
Svetlana Alexievich · 248 pages
On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Although the Soviet government claims that only 31 people died as a result, the aftermath of the event is astounding. Over 485 villages are lost, and approximately 2.1 million people (including 700,000 children) live on contaminated land. There is no official
Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to al-Qaeda
Robert Wallace, H. Keith Melton, Henry R. Schlesinger · 480 pages
From two men who know how espionage really works, an unprecedented history--heavily illustrated with never-before-seen images--of the CIA's most secretive operations and the gadgets that made them possible. What is an invisible photo used for? What does it take to build a quiet helicopter? How does one embed a listening device in a cat? These may sound like challenges for James Bond's fictional ga
Apollo 8
Jeffrey Kluger · 320 pages
Recounts the bold but dangerous mission to secure America's position as the first nation to reach the moon, revealing the dangers endured by its crew and the ways the mission brought renewal to a country ravaged by assassinations and war.
Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World
Tom Zoellner · 337 pages
The fascinating story of the most powerful source of energy the earth can yieldUranium is a common element in the earth’s crust and the only naturally occurring mineral with the power to end all life on the planet. After World War II, it reshaped the global order—whoever could master uranium could master the world.Marie Curie gave us hope that uranium would be a miracle panacea, but the Manhattan
A Man on the Moon
Andrew Chaikin, Michael Kramer · 688 pages
For the 25th anniversary of the first moon landing, a winning and detailed account of the Apollo astronauts, a dozen of whom were the first human beings to walk on the face of the moon. The strength of the book lies in Chaikin's exhaustive research, including interviews with all 24 Apollo astronauts. Chaikin, an editor of Sky and Telescope, draws on the wealth of material from NASA's files--incl
The Cradle of American Space Exploration
Kenny Mitchell
At the end of World War II, the U.S. government transferred Dr. Wernher von Braun and his team of scientists from Germany to America. No one could have imagined that the greatest engineering feat in human history would result. Working together, the Germans and their American counterparts became the Apollo team capable of responding to a presidential challenge issued in 1962 to take mankind to the
Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War
Susan Southard · 402 pages
This book is a powerful and unflinching account of the enduring impact of nuclear war, told through the stories of those who survived. On August 9, 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, a small port city on Japan's southernmost island. An estimated 74,000 people died within the first five months, and another 75,000 were
The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of Darpa, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency
Annie Jacobsen · 568 pages
Since its inception in 1958, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has grown to become the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science research and development agency. Created by President Eisenhower to prevent another Sputnik, and to focus primarily on defensive programs against nuclear weapons, the agency--and its imagination and sc
Fail-Safe
Eugene Burdick, Harvey Wheeler · 285 pages
The question of accidental war is examined in this novel about American planes which fly past the point of recall to drop nuclear bombs on Moscow.
The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War
H.W. Brands · 480 pages
"From master storyteller and historian H.W. Brands, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II. At the height of the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman committed a gaffe that sent shock waves around the world. When asked by a reporter about t
Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World's Superpowers
Simon Winchester · 492 pages
The New York Times best-selling author of The Men Who United the States traces the geological history of the Pacific Ocean to assess its relationship with humans and indelible role in the modern world.
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
Steve Coll · 728 pages
An account of the CIA's involvement in the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and gave rise to bin Laden's al Qaeda. For nearly the past quarter century, while most Americans were unaware, Afghanistan has been the playing field for intense covert operations by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies-invisible wars which sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks and which pro
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Denise Kiernan · 373 pages
In this book the author traces the story of the unsung World War II workers in Oak Ridge, Tennessee through interviews with dozens of surviving women and other Oak Ridge residents. This is the story of the young women of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, who unwittingly played a crucial role in one of the most significant moments in U.S. history. The Tennessee town of Oak Ridge was created from scratch in 194
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin · 721 pages
Biography of American physicist Robert J. Oppenheimer. Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.
Diplomacy
Henry Kissinger · 912 pages
In this controversial and monumental book - arguably his most important - Henry Kissinger illuminates just what diplomacy is. Moving from a sweeping overview of his own interpretation of history to personal accounts of his negotiations with world leaders, Kissinger describes the ways in which the art of diplomacy and the balance of power have created the world we live in, and shows how Americans,
Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938
Stephen E. Ambrose, Douglas Brinkley · 420 pages
Incorporating the most recent scholarship, this eighth revised edition of "Rise to Globalism" now in paperback offers a concise and informative overview of the evolution of American foreign policy from 1938 to the present. Ambrose also wrote bestsellers "Undaunted Courage" and "D-Day."
The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide
Gary J. Bass · 499 pages
A full-length account of the involvement of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in Pakistan's brutal 1970s military dictatorship argues that they encouraged China's military presence in India, illegally supplied weapons used in massacres and embraced military strategies that have negatively impacted geopolitics for decades. By the author of Freedom's Battle.
The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future
Victor Cha · 552 pages
Looks at the nation of North Korea, its history, social conditions, and place in world politics as it stands today and where it is likely to end up in the future. In this book the author, pulls back the curtain on provocative, isolationist North Korea, providing our best look yet at its history and the rise of the Kim family dynasty and the obsessive personality cult that empowers them. He illumin
Hiroshima Nagasaki
Paul Ham · 640 pages
In this harrowing history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Paul Ham argues against the use of nuclear weapons, drawing on extensive research and hundreds of interviews to prove that the bombings had little impact on the eventual outcome of the Pacific War.