“Readers will find Kalmbach’s book a good companion for the Chernobyl history literature... Kalmbach’s work also sits on a shelf of the new disaster studies scholarship that explores the politics of disaster as contingent, urgent, and slow moving.” • Technology and Culture
“…an engaging tale chronicling the construction of narratives comprising the discursive legacy of Chernobyl outside of Eastern Europe…A reminder that the Chernobyl debates are not over.” • Isis
“Through wide-ranging and careful research, Karena Kalmbach elaborates the many ways in which the Chernobyl accident became a European historical event closely turning around national politics in Great Britain and France. Kalmbach shows the irony of transnational nuclear technologies and nuclear fallout confined in national discourse.” • Kate Brown, MIT
“The Meanings of a Disaster is a meticulously researched, readable, and intelligently argued analysis of over two decades’ worth of Chernobyl discourse in France and Britain.” • Sonja Schmid, Virginia Tech
“As a follow-up to her skillful study of discourses around nuclear power and radiation protection in France following the Chernobyl disaster, Karena Kalmbach has provided a fresh look at the problem in transnational and comparative perspective. Her argument is well-grounded, based on broad evidence, and embedded within a clear and effective conceptual framework.” • Anna Veronika Wendland, Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe
Karena Kalmbach is Assistant Professor in History at Eindhoven University of Technology. She received her doctorate from the European University Institute in Florence for a dissertation that subsequently was awarded the 2015 Book Prize for Young Scholars from the International Committee for the History of Technology.