Purloki, 66, is a professor of history at Harvard University and director of the Center for Ukrainian Studies, specializing in the history of Eastern European thought, culture, and international relations. He is a prolific scholar and has published 18 books. In the last decade, he has released a new book almost every year, which has attracted more and more attention.
Ploki has a large readership in China, and his most influential books in China are The Collapse of a Great Power: Behind the Scenes of the Collapse of the Soviet Union and Chernobyl: A Tragic History.
From February 4 to 11, 1945, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill held a secret meeting in Yalta. During these 8 days, they tried to pave the way for peace, but also paid the price for achieving peace, which ultimately changed the world pattern.
We look at the origins of the Cold War. A new generation of students and policymakers should learn from this history. We all have a lot of work to do. Ploki said.
Salvage the history of the nuclear age
Puloki embarked on a path of study of the history of the nuclear age, starting with the Chernobyl accident.
Calling himself a "child of the Cold War", he was born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, in 1957 and grew up in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Purloki initially wanted to be a journalist, but his father advised him to give up, arguing that journalism was not a real profession under the censorship system of the time. He was fond of history, and later went on to study at universities in Ukraine and Russia, and after graduation he worked as a professor of history at a Ukrainian university.
On April 26, 1986, at the time of the accident, Puloki lived less than 500 kilometers downstream of the damaged nuclear reactor. "Almost everyone there was affected by the accident," he said, "while our children stayed indoors while my colleagues and students were conscripted into the army and sent to clean up in the restricted area".
A few years later, when Puroki was a visiting scholar in Canada, doctors said his thyroid gland was a little red and swollen. "It's a worrying symptom of radiation exposure," he says, "and luckily my wife and children are fine." One of his college classmates was sent to a restricted area and was later hospitalized for at least a month every year.
So I've always wondered what exactly happened, who is to blame, and why we know so little about nuclear leaks. ”
Although doubts have been lurking in Plokhi's mind for years, there is no credible material for historians to speak casually.
After the Maidan Movement and the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine in 2014, previously closed information on the Chernobyl nuclear accident (including the response of the ** Committee, the archives of the KGB, etc.) began to be made available to the world. Puroki was able to research and write in search of answers.
In his book, Ploki argues that the immediate trigger for the Chernobyl accident was a faulty turbine test, but that the underlying cause was the shortcomings of the Soviet political system and the nuclear industry.
Today, he argues, the risk of the next nuclear disaster is rising, as some leaders may make difficult promises to maintain ecological security in order to overcome the energy and demographic crises, achieve their geopolitical goals, and promote rapid economic growth. For example, Pakistan and North Korea have used programs aimed at promoting the use of nuclear energy to advance their nuclear programs and have developed nuclear bombsThe Middle East and parts of Africa are at the forefront of the nuclear field, and the political situation in some of these regions is extremely volatile, which further increases the risks for the nuclear industry.
The reason is not the accident itself, but the cover-up
After the publication of Chernobyl, when Ploki gave lectures on a lecture tour in the United States, Europe and Australia, readers repeatedly asked him: "Do you think that covering up Chernobyl is just the story of the Soviet Union, and our ** did not act like this?".”
Not knowing the answer, Puloki decided to delve deeper into the question, hence the global history of the nuclear catastrophe called "Atoms and Ashes".
After comparing six of the worst disasters out of hundreds of accidents in the history of the nuclear industry, Ploki argues that major accidents reveal many realities beyond simple mistakes and technical failures, and that some of the most important political, social, and cultural factors are at stake.
These factors are indirect, insidious, and profoundly contributing to a specific disaster. At the same time, they reveal the similarities and differences between scientists, engineers, nuclear industry giants, the general public and the public in the way nuclear disasters and emergencies are handled.
Specifically, if the U.S. military had not tested the first hydrogen bomb as planned in a relatively short period of time, the "Castle Bravo" test might not have had such tragic consequencesIf the UK** had not pressured to extend the interval between annealing operations, the Wenskell plant fire might not have occurred;If the Chernobyl nuclear power plant does not have the pressure to be connected to the grid as soon as possible, then the reactor will not be started without performing the necessary tests.
As the Three Mile Island and Fukushima nuclear accidents have revealed, regulators often have ambiguous relationships with the industry and turn a blind eye to safety violations.
Ploki found that Chernobyl readers were right to be skeptical. All **, whether capitalist or socialist, ** or democratic, without exception do not like bad news, and most ** have considered or implemented some kind of cover-up.
The reason for this is not the accident itself, but the cover-up. Ploki concluded.
Atoms and Ashes presents two completely different attitudes towards nuclear energy from the public, which is generally opposed to nuclear energy and often in favor of it.
In August, Japan began discharging treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean.
According to Ploki, the wastewater crisis is yet another reminder that the decision to build a nuclear power plant is made by countries, but the consequences of an accident are international. This was true of Chernobyl, and it was true of Fukushima. If the international community is to pay the price for a country's decision, it must have a say in the decision-making process.
In my book, the people who make the decisions, the people who 'shape' history, are not necessarily in high positions, they may be, and often only happen to be in that time and place, reflecting the light and the tragedy of the times. ”
Ploki celebrates global history. He said that his work deals with the collision between different socio-political systems, cultures, and worldviews, and that one of his tasks is to uncover the multiple links involved. He felt that these ties connected people from different regions and eras.
The last key word is "obligation" or "responsibility". In many interviews, he has expressed similar meanings.
For example, "Chernobyl" was written because he shared the story with the people who lived there at that time and were somehow affected.
There are at least 100 million of these people, but at least half of them have died, and many of the rest are not equipped to tell the story. So he has an obligation to study these issues, discover as much truth as possible, and tell the truth to everyone. This is just as important for the current situation.