The Social Roots of Risk: Producing Disasters Promoting Resilience (High Reliability and Crisis Management)

About this book

The first decade of the 21st century saw a remarkable number of large-scale disasters. Earthquakes in Haiti and Sumatra underscored the serious economic consequences that catastrophic events can have on developing countries while 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina showed that first world nations remain vulnerable. The Social Roots of Risk argues against the widespread notion that cataclysmic occurrences are singular events driven by forces beyond our control. Instead Kathleen Tierney contends that disasters of all typesbe they natural technological or economicare rooted in common social and institutional sources. Put another way risks and disasters are produced by the social order itselfby governing bodies organizations and groups that push for economic growth oppose risk-reducing regulation and escape responsibility for tremendous losses when they occur. Considering a wide range of historical and looming eventsfrom a potential mega-earthquake in Tokyo that would cause devastation far greater than what we saw in 2011 to BPs accident history prior to the 2010 blowoutTierney illustrates trends in our behavior connecting what seem like one-off events to illuminate historical patterns. Like risk human resilience also emerges from the social order and this book makes a powerful case that we already have a significant capacity to reduce the losses that disasters produce. A provocative rethinking of the way that we approach and remedy disasters The Social Roots of Risk leaves readers with a better understanding of how our own actions make us vulnerable to the next big crisisand what we can do to prevent it.