One of the very few books truly to have changed the course of history

Rachel Carson educated a planet ... Silent Spring is the cornerstone of the conservation movement. Its impact was immediate, far-reaching and ultimately life-enhancing ... One of the most effective books ever written

Calm, informative and refreshingly free of hype, Wooldridge's effortlessly readable book is the perfect guide to the history and future of AI.

In the long and often frustrating quest for artificial intelligence, something spectacular has happened in the past decade. Nobody understands the past, the present, the promise and the peril of this new technology better than Michael Wooldridge. He has written the definitive account of the new AI.

The buzz around AI has unearthed many questions and in The Road to Conscious Machines you get answers.

In an age when AI is promoted as either the greatest threat or best hope for humanity, Wooldridge gives us a text that is accessible and authoritative. A balanced and informed view of the decades-long history of AI, its methods and techniques, achievements and shortfalls.

In this diligent and reassuring explanation of the immense difficulty of recreating intelligence in a machine, Michael Wooldridge succeeds not only in writing an engaging history of AI, but in telling us about the fabulously complicated structures on which our own consciousness rests

This is a highly detailed, carefully documented, beautifully narrated telling of this breathtakingly complex accident and its mitigation.

Secrecy, stupidity and farce: the full story of what caused Chernobyl. Surely definitive.

A gripping, miss-your-subway-stop read. Higginbotham captures the nerve-racked Soviet atmosphere brilliantly, mostly through vivid details about the participants.

A nuclear thriller. Higginbotham has done some remarkable research... impressive.

A searing account... explores in thriller-like detail the appalling human cost of an explosive combination of scientific hubris, bureaucratic incompetence and political secrecy and paranoia. A testament to innumerable individual acts of astonishing courage.

Midnight in Chernobyl is the most thorough and scrupulously reported book to appear on the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century. Attentive and humane, it is also a gripping read on the tragic intersection of nuclear and Soviet power.

A definitive book. Adam Higginbotham has written a wonderful and chilling account of how the Chernobyl disaster happened, featuring protagonists and victims, party bosses and hapless engineers, confusion and cover up. The story of how the reactor exploded and its grisly aftermath are told with thriller-like flair. Higginbotham captures the scientific and the human, in a tale of hubris and doomed ambition.

A masterpiece of reporting and storytelling that puts us on the ground for one of the most important events of the twentieth century. Adam Higginbotham opens a world nearly impossible to penetrate, then finds truths inside we weren’t supposed to discover. As readers, we could not hope for a more thrilling and visceral adventure. As citizens of the world, we ignore Midnight in Chernobyl at our peril.

A chilling book.

A riveting, deeply reported reconstruction of a catastrophe

Adam Higginbotham's brilliantly well-written Midnight In Chernobyl draws on new sources and original research to illuminate the true story of one of history’s greatest technological failures - and, along with it, the bewildering reality of everyday life during the final years of the Soviet Union.

Higginbotham’s superb account of the April 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is one of those rare books about science and technology that read like a tension-filled thriller. Replete with vivid detail and sharply etched personalities, this narrative of astounding incompetence moves from mistake to mistake, miscalculation to miscalculation, as it builds to the inevitable, history-changing disaster.

Definitive.

A colourful, well-researched book.

Adam Higginbotham’s Midnight at Chernobyl is a superb account of the catastrophic accident that occurred in the No 4 reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power station in 1986. Higginbotham’s research is thorough and enlightening; much has emerged about what really happened following the fall of the Soviet Union. An experienced journalist, he makes the complex historical, political, technical and human aspects of this dramatic story intelligible. His book is a pleasure to read.

Here is a triumph of investigative reportage, exquisite science writing, and heart-pounding storytelling. With Midnight in Chernobyl, Adam Higginbotham gives us a glimpse of Armageddon, but carries it off with such narrative verve that he somehow makes it entertaining. One thing is assured: After reading this astonishing, terrifying book, you will never think of nuclear power in quite the same way again.

Written with authority, this superb book reads like a classic disaster story and reveals a Soviet empire on the brink....[A] vivid and exhaustive account.

Midnight in Chernobyl is top-notch historical narrative: a tense, fast-paced, engrossing, and revelatory product of more than a decade of research....a stunningly detailed account....For all its wealth of information, the work never becomes overwhelming or difficult to follow. Higginbotham humanizes the tale, maintaining a focus on the people involved and the choices, both heroic and not, they made in unimaginable circumstances. This is an essential human tale with global consequences.

The most comprehensive, most thoroughly detailed history yet to appear ... a compelling, panoramic account of the disaster set in its broader context.

Spellbinding ... profound ... an excellent, enthralling account of the disaster and its fallout.

Gripping... brilliantly dissected in this electrifying account. The power of Higginbotham's book is its layered detail and driving narrative, but also in the context.

The most frightening book you’ll read this year, or next... the story of humanity in both its best and worst iterations. Higginbotham has told it with a calm regard for the balance between history and journalism, momentousness and human simplicity. If it’s the most frightening book you’ll read this year, it is also one of the most uplifting.

Highly readable . . . Higginbotham [is] a skilled science writer. . . . Mr. Higginbotham’s book reflects extensive on-the-scene research. . . . and vividly describes the futile attempts of engineers to bring a runaway reactor under control.

In fascinating detail, Higginbotham chronicles how the drama played out, showing that Soviet hubris in part led to the accident and Soviet secrecy compounded it.

The book reads like an adventure novel, but it’s a richly researched non-fiction work by a brilliant storyteller. . . . Get and read this gripping account to understand why people are still so afraid of nuclear power.

Midnight in Chernobyl is a master class in reporting.