The very name speaks volumes, in just three syllables: Chernobyl. It is the site of the worst nuclear power disaster ever, a 1986 explosion and massive radiation leak that killed dozens of people quickly and sickened thousands more for years to come.
Serhii Plokhy, a Ukrainian historian, finds the greatest fault in the Soviet system that was ultimately responsible for the disaster.
The system itself passed into history less than a decade later, but authoritarian governments exist elsewhere and are interested in nuclear power.
Plokhy warns of the potential for future problems in his book Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe. He visits to replay some of the history, in the hope it will not be repeated.
