Books by Serhii Plokhy
Serhii Plokhy is Mykhailo S. Hrushevs’kyi Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University and Director of its Ukrainian Research Institute. His book, Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy, was the winner of the 2018 Baillie Gifford Prize, the UK’s most prestigious nonfiction prize. He has won the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize two times, once for Chernobyl and once for The Last Empire, his book about the last months of the Soviet Union. If you’re looking for a book on Ukrainian history in particular, we recommend his book The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine as an excellent place to start.
“The Russo-Ukrainian War is by Serhii Plokhy, a Ukrainian historian at Harvard who looks to history to understand the conflict, seeing it as an ‘old-fashioned imperial war’ with its roots in the 19th and 20th centuries. As he notes in the preface, ‘I take a longue durée approach to understanding the current war. I decline the temptation to identify the date of February, 2022, as its beginning, no matter the shock and drama of the all-out Russian assault on Ukraine, for the simple reason that the war began eight years earlier, on February 27, 2014, when Russian armed forces seized the building of the Crimean parliament.'” Read more...
Notable Nonfiction of Early Summer 2023
Sophie Roell, Journalist
“In Atoms and Ashes, Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy, author of a brilliant book on Chernobyl, looks at six nuclear disasters around the world—starting with the testing of a hydrogen bomb in Bikini Atoll in 1954 and ending with Fukushima—to see what lessons can be learned from them. As citizens, the pros and cons of nuclear power is something we have a duty to think about, and this book is a gripping way in.” Read more...
Notable Nonfiction of Spring 2022
Sophie Roell, Journalist
The Frontline: Essays on Ukraine’s Past and Present
by Serhii Plokhy
A collection of essays published in November 2021 by Serhii Plokhy, the Harvard historian, reflecting on Ukrainian history and also its enormous significance for understanding the present.
Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis
by Serhii Plokhy
In Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy turns his attention to events in the 1960s which nearly led to nuclear armageddon between the US and the USSR. Plokhy's last book, on the Chernobyl disaster, was so brilliant that it won the UK's Baillie Gifford Prize, awarded for the best nonfiction book of the entire year. There are a number of books on the Cuban Missile Crisis told from the American side—starting with Robert F Kennedy's own memoir of that scary period—Thirteen Days—but Plokhy, who is a historian of the Ukraine, offers a more international perspective, including previously classified KGB documents.
We spoke to Serhii in December 2020 about the best books on Russia, selected annually by the judges of the Pushkin House Book Prize.
Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy
by Serhii Plokhy
🏆 Winner of the 2018 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy is a gripping and highly readable book by Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy about the Chernobyl nuclear accident of April 26th, 1986 at Pripyat, in what is now Ukraine. The audiobook is read by the British actor Leighton Pugh.
“He’s really good here at laying down the background of the disaster itself, the plant’s construction, the days leading up to it, the moments the accident occurred. He talks about the accident itself, the delay in informing the public, the censorship of news, the trial of the nuclear power plant operators who he thinks were treated as scapegoats, and the political outcomes of all this deception.” Read more...
Kate Brown, Historian
Interviews with Serhii Plokhy
-
1
Ukraine and Russia: From Civilied Divorce to Uncivil War
by Paul D'Anieri -
2
Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know
by Serhy Yekelchyk -
3
Ukraine’s Nuclear Disarmament: A History
by Yuri Kostenko -
4
Ukraine in Histories and Stories: Essays by Ukrainian Intellectuals
-
5
The Orphanage: A Novel
by Serhiy Zhadan
The best books on Ukraine and Russia, recommended by Serhii Plokhy
The best books on Ukraine and Russia, recommended by Serhii Plokhy
Thousands of people have been killed since 2014 in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, in a war that has been rife with disinformation, misleading narratives and false flag operations. Here Serhii Plokhy, Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University, recommends books to better understand the conflict, from an introductory work by an eminent historian to the latest work of some of Ukraine’s leading novelists.
-
1
The Return of the Russian Leviathan
by Sergei Medvedev & Stephen Dalziel (translator) -
2
Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait
by Bathsheba Demuth -
3
Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future
by Kate Brown -
4
Stalin's Scribe: Literature, Ambition, and Survival, the Life of Mikhail Sholokhov
by Brian Boeck -
5
This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible in Stalin's Russia
by Joan Neuberger -
6
An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin’s Master Agent
by Owen Matthews
The Best Russia Books: the 2020 Pushkin House Prize, recommended by Serhii Plokhy
The Best Russia Books: the 2020 Pushkin House Prize, recommended by Serhii Plokhy
Every year since 2013 the Russian Book Prize run by Pushkin House, a UK charity, has carried out the important task of drawing attention to books that “encourage public understanding and intelligent debate about the Russian-speaking world.” Here, Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy, chair of this year’s judging panel, talks us through the books that made the 2020 shortlist.
Interviews where books by Serhii Plokhy were recommended
-
1
Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy
by Serhii Plokhy -
2
Producing Power: The Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry
by Sonja D Schmid -
3
Voices From Chernobyl
by Svetlana Alexievich -
4
Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project
by Peter Bacon Hales -
5
The Politics of Invisibility: Public Knowledge about Radiation Health Effects after Chernobyl
by Olga Kuchinskaya
The best books on Chernobyl, recommended by Kate Brown
The best books on Chernobyl, recommended by Kate Brown
While widely regarded as the world’s worst nuclear accident, Chernobyl’s legacy remains fiercely contested, with death tolls ranging from 31 to 200,000. MIT historian Kate Brown, who has spent years in the Chernobyl archives, picks the best books on the disaster, compares its impact with atomic bomb testing, and argues for more research into low-dose radiation exposure
-
1
Hello World: How to Be Human in the Age of the Machine
by Hannah Fry -
2
The Spy and the Traitor
by Ben Macintyre -
3
Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man
-
4
Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age
-
5
Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy
by Serhii Plokhy -
6
She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity
by Carl Zimmer
The Best Nonfiction Books of 2018, recommended by Fiammetta Rocco
The Best Nonfiction Books of 2018, recommended by Fiammetta Rocco
It’s a difficult task: to identify the very best nonfiction books of the year. But the Baillie Gifford Prize aims to do just that. The chair of the prize’s 2018 judging panel Fiammetta Rocco talks to us about the six fascinating titles that made the shortlist.
The Best Politics Books of 2018, recommended by Stephen Bush
2018 has been a year full of alarming political developments, but it has also proven fodder for an excellent crop of political books. Stephen Bush, special correspondent at the New Statesman, selects five of the best politics books.
Notable Nonfiction of Spring 2022, recommended by Sophie Roell
In the past few months, lots of history books about the past as well as excellent insights into the present have hit the shelves. Some are gripping reads offering a few hours of escapism, others contributions to our human quest to make the world a better place. Some manage both. Five Books editor Sophie Roell offers a roundup of the most notable new books of nonfiction published in March, April and May 2022.
-
1
The Russo-Ukrainian War
by Serhii Plokhy -
2
King: A Life
by Jonathan Eig -
3
Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials
by Marion Gibson -
4
How to Flourish: An Ancient Guide to Living Well
by Aristotle & Susan Sauvé Meyer (translator) -
5
Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
by Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson
Notable Nonfiction of Early Summer 2023, recommended by Sophie Roell
Notable Nonfiction of Early Summer 2023, recommended by Sophie Roell
As high summer hits the northern hemisphere, Sophie Roell, editor of Five Books, takes a look at the many nonfiction books published over the last three months. With so many books coming out that are both readable and written by people who know what they’re talking about, reading remains one of the most enjoyable ways to make sense of the world around us.
