Plokhy capably chronicles a disturbing tale, underlining how close the world came to another nuclear catastrophe.
A timely study of how nuclear power plants and the unpredictability of war make for a frightening cocktail.
Of the many awful stories to emerge from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, perhaps the most chilling are those involving nuclear power plants. Plokhy, a Harvard professor who has written about both Ukrainian history and nuclear issues throughout his long career, notes that the effects of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster continue and the area is still contaminated—although the facility is manned by several hundred personnel who have the unenviable job of monitoring and overseeing the reactors. The problem is that the Exclusion Zone constitutes the most direct route from Russia to Kyiv. When the Russians appeared, the outgunned Ukrainian guards and technicians surrendered, but once the invaders were in control, they did not seem to know what to do. Many of the Russian soldiers were unaware of the history of the place, although some had been told that the plant was manufacturing nuclear weapons. It was a tense time for everyone, but when the tide of war turned, the Russians were glad to leave the zone. Another crisis emerged when Russian forces attacked the Zaporizhia plant in the south. The Ukrainians fought and were eventually overwhelmed, but there were fears that the battle might have damaged the plant's safety mechanisms. Innovative repairs prevented any dangerous leaks, but it was a close call. Plokhy manages to cut through the fog of Russian disinformation to keep the complex story straight, and interviews with key figures on the Ukrainian side add a personal dimension. He calls for strict rules to protect nuclear facilities in times of conflict, although there is no guarantee that warring parties would abide.
Plokhy capably chronicles a disturbing tale, underlining how close the world came to another nuclear catastrophe.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781324079415
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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