A Chernobyl Guide to the Future

Manual for Survival

'Remarkable . . . grips with the force of a thriller' Robert Macfarlane 
 
'The most brilliant and essential book on Chernobyl since that of Nobel Prize-winner Svetlana Alexievich' Irish Times 
 
** National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2019 ** 
 
The official death toll of the 1986 Chernobyl accident, 'the worst nuclear disaster in history', is only 54, and stories today commonly suggest that nature is thriving there. Yet award-winning historian Kate Brown uncovers a much more disturbing story, one in which radioactive isotopes caused hundreds of thousands of casualties, and the magnitude of the disaster has been actively suppressed. 
 
For years after, Soviet scientists, bureaucrats and civilians were documenting staggering increases in birth defects, child mortality, cancers and other life-altering diseases. Worried that this evidence would blow the lid on the effects of radiation release from Cold War weapons-testing, scientists and diplomats from international organizations, including the UN, tried to bury or discredit it. Brown also encounters many everyday heroes, often women, who fought to bring attention to the ballooning human and ecological catastrophe, and adapt to life in a post-nuclear landscape, where the dangerous effects of radiation persist today. 
 
Based on a decade of archival and on-the-ground research, Manual for Survival is a gripping historical detective story that brings to light the real consequences of Chernobyl - and the plot to cover them up. 
 
'A troubling book, passionately written and deeply researched' Sunday Times

A magisterial blend of historical research, investigative journalism and poetic reportage, Kate Brown sets out to uncover Chernobyl's true medical and environmental effects . . . an awe-inspiring journey.

This thrilling, frightening book tells the truth about the Chernobyl disaster . . . the most brilliant and essential book on Chernobyl since that of Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich.

An astonishing unconventional history.

Brown's page-turner skilfully weaves an original narrative on the long-term medical effects of the Chernobyl disaster... Her capacity to immerse herself and pick up on nuances brings these stories from factory workers, technicians, doctors and villagers alive.

Exemplary ... Brown is an indomitable researcher

Full of passion . . . [an] admirable uncovering of the hidden story behind Chernobyl.

Vital work, making a convincing case for the catastrophic long-term medical and ecological effects of the disaster

A troubling book, passionately written and deeply researched ... the book moves from science to thriller and realm of conspiracy... there is no doubt about Brown's gift for vivid narrative. Her conclusion is chilling.

A humane book about the irreversible things a technological disaster does to people and landscapes.

Owen Hatherley, New Statesman, 'Best Books of 2019'

A magnificent monograph that stands out among the multiple books on Chernobyl simply because it tells us the truth - the whole unadulterated truth - about one of the worst disasters in history. As such, it may itself be regarded as a survival manual of sorts. And a guide to the future, too.

Help[s] us comprehend, both emotionally and rationally, a disaster so great that future scholars will detect it thousands years from now, whether they have written accounts of it or not.

Kate Brown [...] shows that there are still many ways to tell this story, and that the lessons of Chernobyl remain unresolved ... Brown argues persuasively that [researchers] are grossly underestimating the scale of the damage.

Manual For Survival is a remarkable book, distinguished by Kate Brown's rare combination of skills: formidable archival history, investigative research, and vivid storytelling. There are parts of this book that grip with the force of a thriller - but again and again, the plot is proved true. A decade's work has gone into uncovering the real human cost of Chernobyl. This is a book about even bigger subjects than the disaster at its core, however: about how politics processes disaster, about the unseen legacies of the 'friendly atom', and about the Anthropocene futures faced by the human species, surviving in an epoch of ruin.

Robert Macfarlane, author of The Lost Words

This deftly written, impassioned, courageous book should make the world think twice about what's at stake when we unleash nuclear reactions.

Alan Weisman, author, The World Without Us and Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?

Kate Brown presents a convincing challenge to the official narrative of the Chernobyl disaster. Deeply reported and elegantly written, "Manual for Survival" is chilling.

Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

Combining the skills of a historian, investigative reporter, and detective Kate Brown has blown the lid off the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and decades of official efforts to suppress its grim truths. Disturbing in its conclusions, destined to incite controversy, Manual for Survival is first-rate historical sleuthing.

J.R. McNeill, author of The Great Acceleration

Gripping . . . Kate Brown's relentless, tenacious reporting shows that Chernobyl isn't the past at all.  Nothing, she makes clear, can stop its radiation from seeping through all attempts to bury the truth, for a long time to come. This deftly written, impassioned, courageous book should make the world think twice about what's at stake when we unleash nuclear reactions.

This engagingly written book reads like a cold war thriller and uncovers the devastating effects of one of the world's worst nuclear disasters.

Alison MacFarlane, Director, Institute for International Science and Technology Policy, George Washington University

The official death toll of the 1986 Chernobyl accident, 'the worst nuclear disaster in history', is only 54, and stories today commonly suggest that nature is thriving there. Yet award-winning historian Kate Brown uncovers a much more disturbing story, one in which radioactive isotopes caused hundreds of thousands of casualties, and the magnitude of the disaster has been actively suppressed. 
 
For years after, Soviet scientists, bureaucrats and civilians were documenting staggering increases in birth defects, child mortality, cancers and other life-altering diseases. Worried that this evidence would blow the lid on the effects of radiation release from Cold War weapons-testing, scientists and diplomats from international organizations, including the UN, tried to bury or discredit it. Brown also encounters many everyday heroes, often women, who fought to bring attention to the ballooning human and ecological catastrophe, and adapt to life in a post-nuclear landscape, where the dangerous effects of radiation persist today. 
 
Based on a decade of archival and on-the-ground research, Manual for Survival is a gripping historical detective story that brings to light the real consequences of Chernobyl - and the plot to cover them up.

Kate Brown

This manifesto of urban gardening explores how planted parcels of land can not only provide nutrition but also support social revolution ... Throughout, Brown proves that gardening is not just a way to produce food but also a tool of self-empowerment.

This timely book ... looks at the ingenious ways that city dwellers have carved out space for cultivating their own fruit and vegetables and why growing conditions in the city may actually be healthier than the countryside … splendid ... Tiny Gardens Everywhere makes a powerful case for more urban gardeners to be encouraged to grow their own produce … Could this be the time for town gardeners to dig for victory once again?

She deftly combines ... pressing ecological concerns with an absorbing narrative history

What a wonder Tiny Gardens Everywhere is! This absolutely riveting, beautifully written book is a blueprint for how we can transform our cities by remembering the lessons of the past - how by simply providing space for gardens we can create happier, healthier communities, grow prolific, sustainable food and construct cities that are connected with the earth and a fairer way of living. How I hope we can all heed the wisdom of this astonishing book!

With enviable skill, craft, and insight, Kate Brown shows that the past of small-scale urban provisioning contains the seeds of a more resilient future for us all.

Tiny Gardens Everywhere shows us the path between the plot and the planet. It’s an amazing, beautiful book; I couldn’t put it down.

author of THE MUSHROOM AT THE END OF THE WORLD

Engaging and inspiring. A fascinating history into the quietly radical role of allotments and guerrilla gardening. A reminder that cities are still places where plants can thrive, where people can connect to the earth, despite all the concrete, brick and asphalt. Superb.

'A heartening testimony to the efficacy of small, idiosyncratic projects, and the ingenuity and resilience of urban gardeners

landscape architect & author of LOST GARDENS OF LONDON

A sparkling new history of urban areas demonstrating that they have long been full of vibrant green shoots. Diving into this visionary blend of history, memoir, and political insight is like eating a salad of fresh spring greens with a sprinkling of wild strawberries – refreshing, delightful, and nourishing for both mind and spirit.

author of WILD GIRLS and ALL THAT SHE CARRIED

For urban farmers world-wide, this vibrant secret history validates our work and guides future gardeners toward better composting, radical use of common spaces, and plenty of zucchini.

author of FARM CITY and THE ESSENTIAL URBAN FARMER

A History of Urban Resilience

A big history of little spaces, of nature in urban life, and of gardeners and their gardens through time 
 
‘What a wonder this book is! Absolutely riveting and beautifully written. I hope we can all heed its wisdom’ ISABELLA TREE 
'Splendid' Mail on Sunday 
'Engaging and inspiring. A fascinating history into the quietly radical role of allotments' CHRIS FITCH 
 
In the heart of bustling European and American cities lies an overlooked yet vibrant corner of resilience, ingenuity and magic: our gardens. 
 
From pre-industrial England to modern-day Ohio, via the Paris Commune, Barackia in pre-war Berlin, Soviet allotments in Estonia, the orchards tended by Black migrants in Washington and food forests in contemporary Amsterdam, ordinary people, working with each other and with nature, cultivated life in the unlikeliest of places. Over the past three hundred years, these tiny gardens, often born from necessity and shaped by precarity, immigration and environmental crisis, have thrived by recycling nutrients, remedying contaminated soil and transforming how we think about our relationship to the earth. 
 
Tiny Gardens Everywhere is a hymn to the most fertile agriculture in recorded human history, showing that it occurred not on farms – the product of gigantic exertions of fossil fuels and technology – but with little effort in small garden beds. And the resourcefulness, intuition and inherited methods of their growers accomplished many of today’s sustainability goals by producing local, diverse and organic food. 
 
Acclaimed historian Kate Brown unearths the long and battered story of gardeners and their gardens, asking what happens when these urban Edens are not seen as retreats from the city but become part of its social fabric, alive with histories of displacement, conflict and resistance. This is a book about land, but also about community, repair and the quiet revolutions that begin when someone plants a seed in unloved ground.

Kate Brown

Praise for Tiny Gardens Everywhere

This manifesto of urban gardening explores how planted parcels of land can not only provide nutrition but also support social revolution ... Throughout, Brown proves that gardening is not just a way to produce fo ...

This timely book ... looks at the ingenious ways that city dwellers have carved out space for cultivating their own fruit and vegetables and why growing conditions in the city may actually be healthier than t ...

She deftly combines ... pressing ecological concerns with an absorbing narrative history

This manifesto of urban gardening explores how planted parcels of land can not only provide nutrition but also support social revolution ... Throughout, Brown proves that gardening is not just a way to produce fo ...

This timely book ... looks at the ingenious ways that city dwellers have carved out space for cultivating their own fruit and vegetables and why growing conditions in the city may actually be healthier than t ...

She deftly combines ... pressing ecological concerns with an absorbing narrative history

This manifesto of urban gardening explores how planted parcels of land can not only provide nutrition but also support social revolution ... Throughout, Brown proves that gardening is not just a way to produce fo ...

This timely book ... looks at the ingenious ways that city dwellers have carved out space for cultivating their own fruit and vegetables and why growing conditions in the city may actually be healthier than t ...

She deftly combines ... pressing ecological concerns with an absorbing narrative history

Books by Kate Brown

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter