Table of Contents
Introduction: The Survivor's Manual 1
Part I The Accident
Liquidators at Hospital No. 6 13
Evacuees 26
Rainmakers 40
Operators 46
Ukrainians 56
Physicists and Physicians 67
Part II Hot Survival
Woolly Truths 81
Clean Hides, Dirty Water 95
Making Sausage of Disaster 99
Farms into Factories 108
Part III Man-Made Nature
The Swamp Dweller 119
The Great Chernobyl Acceleration 132
Part IV Post-Apocalypse Politics
The Housekeeper 145
KGB Suspicions 154
Part V Medical Mysteries
Primary Evidence 163
Declassifying Disaster 169
The Superpower Self-Help Initiative 177
Belarusian Somnambulists 183
The Great Awakening 196
Part VI Science across the Iron Curtain
Send for the Cavalry 211
Marie Curie's Fingerprint 216
Foreign Experts 225
In Search of Catastrophe 232
Thyroid Cancer: The Canary in the Medical Mine 240
The Butterfly Effect 249
Looking for a Lost Town 263
Greenpeace Red Shadow 267
The Quiet Ukrainian 275
Part VII Survival Artists
The Pieta 287
Bare Life 296
Conclusion: Berry Picking into the Future 301
Acknowledgments 313
Note on Transliteration and Translation 317
List of Archives and Interviews 319
Notes 323
Index 399