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How long does it take to read Biohazard?

Ken Alibek, Stephen Handelman

Biohazard by Ken Alibek, Stephen Handelman takes about 6 hours 1 minute to read at 250 words a minute.

About 6 hours 1 minute

A weekend read

First published 1999. 328 pages, about 90,200 words.

13 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 10 hours 1 minute
Average, 250 words a minute 6 hours 1 minute
Fast, 400 words a minute 3 hours 46 minutes

The page count is the median across 7 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

Ken Alibek's straightforward story of massive, state-sponsored bio weapons research by the Soviet Union and Modern Russia was too far ahead of its' time. Looking back with post-9/11 vision, "too far" was a mere two years ahead of its' time. Biohazard is an eyeopening autobiography of Ken Alibek, AKA Kanatzhan (Kanat) Alibekov, a leading bio weapons developer and Soviet officer of Kazakh ancestry who was determined to expose the former Soviet Union's extensive covert biological weapons program in the 1990's. It was first published by Hutchinson in the United Kingdom in 1999, then re-released by Arrow Books in 2000. Filled with equal parts terrifying details about the gigantic military bio weapons research operation in Russia and of mundane life in the oppressive former Soviet Union, Biohazard was widely dismissed by so-called "experts" upon its' release as sensationalist baloney, nothing more than a mass of outright lies. The facts and allegations Alibek was putting forth about the magnitude of the illegal weapons research the Soviet Union was doing at that time could have led directly into World War III, but for the most part it was never recognized for what it was until long after he had been published in England. Most of the book's assertions have since been investigated and confirmed by U.S. and other Western microbiological and bio weapons authorities. Visits to the laboratory and weapons production sites have confirmed the majority of the pathogens and the level of research performed there. The vast Soviet Union biological weapons infrastructure dwarfed any known bio weapons program anywhere else, and makes for a truly disturbing read.

Subjects: Biological weapons, Soviet Union, Autobiography, Military weapons development, Biological warfare, Chemical warfare

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