Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

The Next Catastrophe : Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters / Charles Perrow.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2011]Copyright date: ©2011Description: 1 online resource (432 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691129976
  • 9781400838516
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 363.34/7 22
LOC classification:
  • HV551.3 .P45 2011eb
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface to the Paperback Edition. Continuing Catastrophe -- Acknowledgments -- Part One: Introduction and Natural Disasters -- 1. Shrink the Targets -- 2. "Natural" Disasters? -- Part Two: Can Government Help? -- 3. The Government Response The First FEMA -- 4. The Disaster after 9/11: The Department of Homeland Security and a New FEMA -- Part Three: The Disastrous Private Sector -- 5. Are Terrorists as Dangerous as Management? The Nuclear Plant Threat -- 6. Better Vulnerability through Chemistry -- 7. Disastrous Concentration in the National Power Grid -- 8. Concentration and Terror on the Internet -- Part Four: What Is to Be Done? -- 9. The Enduring Sources of Failure: Organizational, Executive, and Regulatory -- Appendix A: Three Types of Redundancy -- Appendix B: Networks of Small Firms -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: 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.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400838516

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface to the Paperback Edition. Continuing Catastrophe -- Acknowledgments -- Part One: Introduction and Natural Disasters -- 1. Shrink the Targets -- 2. "Natural" Disasters? -- Part Two: Can Government Help? -- 3. The Government Response The First FEMA -- 4. The Disaster after 9/11: The Department of Homeland Security and a New FEMA -- Part Three: The Disastrous Private Sector -- 5. Are Terrorists as Dangerous as Management? The Nuclear Plant Threat -- 6. Better Vulnerability through Chemistry -- 7. Disastrous Concentration in the National Power Grid -- 8. Concentration and Terror on the Internet -- Part Four: What Is to Be Done? -- 9. The Enduring Sources of Failure: Organizational, Executive, and Regulatory -- Appendix A: Three Types of Redundancy -- Appendix B: Networks of Small Firms -- Bibliography -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

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.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Jul 2021)