What is the value of human life? Is it a commensurate payment for the desire of the authorities to become omnipotent, and to hide their mistakes from their people — and from themselves? April 25, 1986, in Chernobyl, became a turning point for world history. The disaster not only changed the world’s perception of nuclear power and the science that spawned it, but also our understanding of the planet’s delicate ecology. With the images of the abandoned homes and playgrounds beyond the barbed wire of the 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone, the rusting graveyards of contaminated trucks and helicopters, the farmland lashed with black rain, that event fixed for all time the notion of radiation as an invisible killer. Adam Higginbotham writes for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, Businessweek, as well as The Atavist, and in this astonishing true account, the author explores how an entire country was affected by the government’s lies. “Midnight in Chernobyl” relays the details of this unforgettable time in history in the most understandable way for everyone.