Early in the morning of April 26, 1986, Reactor Number Four of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station exploded, triggering history's worst nuclear accident. In the more than 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 not only its own citizens, but those far beyond its own borders. Yet the real story of what happened remains 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 Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews conducted over the course of more than ten years, as well as letters, unpublished memoirs, and documents from recently declassified archives, Adam Higgenbotham has written a harrowing and compelling story that brings the disaster to life through the eyes of the men and women who witnessed it firsthand. From the ambitious young station director who first envisioned the plant in a snow-covered field in rural Ukraine, to the control room engineers who unwittingly prompted its destruction; from the city officials and government ministers who oversaw the mass evacuation and cleanup, to the ordinary citizens who struggled through it all to keep their families safe - the protagonists in this story confront an enemy that's as terrifying as it is invisible.