Charles Perrow is famous worldwide for his ideas about normal
accidents, the notion that multiple and unexpected
failures--catastrophes waiting to happen--are built into our society's
complex systems. In The Next Catastrophe, he offers crucial insights
into how to make us safer, proposing a bold new way of thinking about
disaster preparedness. Perrow argues that rather than laying exclusive
emphasis on protecting targets, we should reduce their size to
minimize damage and diminish their attractiveness to terrorists. He
focuses on three causes of disaster--natural, organizational, and
deliberate--and shows that our best hope lies in the deconcentration
of high-risk populations, corporate power, and critical
infrastructures such as electric energy, computer systems, and the
chemical and food industries. Perrow reveals how the threat of
catastrophe is on the rise, whether from terrorism, natural disasters,
or industrial accidents. Along the way, he gives us the first
comprehensive history of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security
and examines why these agencies are so ill equipped to protect us. The
Next Catastrophe is a penetrating reassessment of the very real
dangers we face today and what we must do to confront them. Written in
a highly accessible style by a renowned systems-behavior expert, this
book is essential reading for the twenty-first century. The events of
September 11 and Hurricane Katrina--and the devastating human toll
they wrought--were only the beginning. When the next big disaster
comes, will we be ready? In a new preface to the paperback edition,
Perrow examines the recent (and ongoing) catastrophes of the financial
crisis, the BP oil spill, and global warming.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781400838516
Publisert
2013
Utgiver
Vendor
Princeton University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter