Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

The Origins of a Disaster with Adam Higginbotham

In April of 1986 a nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the then Soviet Union. The fallout from the accident and the Soviet government’s response compounded into one of the worst manmade disasters of the nuclear era. In his masterful work of nonfiction, Midnight In Chernobyl, Adam Higginbotham weaves together the stories of the individuals and systems that contributed to the creation of one of the worst disasters in human history. It is not only a sharp eyed and empathetic look at Chernobyl, but it is a particularly timely story about all the things that fall together to create disaster. RELATED READING:<a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781501134630" target="_blank">Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster</a> by Adam Higginbotham<a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780300078152" target="_blank">Seeing Like a State</a> by James C. Scott<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/02/coronavirus-and-blindness-authoritarianism/606922/" target="_blank">“How the Coronavirus Revealed Authoritarianism’s Fatal Flaw”</a> by Zeynep Tufekci

Every week Chris Hayes asks the big questions that keep him up at night. How do we make sense of this unprecedented moment in world history? Why is this (all) happening?

This podcast starts to answer these questions. Writers, experts, and thinkers who are also trying to get to the bottom of them join Chris to break it all down and help him get a better night’s rest. “Why is this Happening?” is presented by MSNBC and NBCNews Think.