This book attempts to be an encyclopedia of all nuclear accidents and radiation incidents that have occurred since the beginning of the nuclear age. For the time it was written, it does a fairly good job of this. The book covers major events, but also includes timelines of lesser incident, grouped by the decade in which the incident occurred. The coverage of the major events doesn’t present any new or groundbreaking information. It is an interesting resource if you were looking for a one stop resource on all things nuclear accidents in the 1990’s.

Anyone who reads this book should take everything with a grain of salt, especially the timelines of various incidents. There are a lot of events listed here, designed to make you think that the earth has come to the brink of nuclear destruction over and over again. Not to say that it hasn’t, but the timelines are padded with events that shouldn’t count as nuclear accidents. A nuclear powered submarine accidentally pulling a fishing trawler by its nets shouldn’t count as a nuclear accident. The timelines are also full of rumored events with no solid details about what happened, or even who was involved. The authors clearly padded these timelines to make the reader think: “Oh my God, look at this list of accidents! This is a huge list. I need to donate to Greenpeace to end this madness right now!”

Now, I am no fan of nuclear power or weapons, and I frankly don’t think any government or organization is really capable of controlling them. The book reinforces how susceptible nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants are to accidents and stupidity. This book may have been a big hit back when it was published, but it is now 25 years old. Contrary to what the book tells you, we now know exactly why the Kyshtym disaster happened. I don’t think this book should really be relied upon anymore, especially when so many recent books cover the same events with much more accuracy and depth. ( )