Normal Accidents : Living with High Risk Technologies - Updated Edition

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Understanding technology's inevitable failures;

This book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how complex technological systems fail. Perrow's framework of analyzing risks based on complexity and coupling is unique, and his case studies of major accidents such as Chernobyl and the Challenger disaster offer valuable insights into the social dynamic of technological risk. Perrow's discussion of the Y2K computer problem may seem dated, but his analysis of the conditions that lead to "normal accidents" remains relevant today. Overall, Normal Accidents is a fascinating and thought-provoking book that will make readers rethink their assumptions about safety and risk in our increasingly complex and interconnected world.

Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

Normal Accidents : Living with High Risk Technologies - Updated Edition

Regular price $6.06
Unit price
per
ISBN: 9780691004129
Estimated First-hand Retail Price: $51.98
Authors: Charles Perrow
Date of Publication: 1999-09-27
Format: Paperback
Related Collections: History, Science, Sociology
Related Topics: History
Goodreads rating: 4.04
(rated by 629 readers)

Description

Normal Accidents analyzes the social side of technological risk. Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety--building in more warnings and safeguards--fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable. He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents. (At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk--complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling--this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them.The first edition fulfilled one reviewer's prediction that it "may mark the beginning of accident research." In the new afterword to this edition Perrow reviews the extensive work on the major accidents of the last fifteen years, including Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Challenger disaster. The new postscript probes what the author considers to be the "quintessential 'Normal Accident'" of our the Y2K computer problem.
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Similar Reads

Understanding technology's inevitable failures;

This book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how complex technological systems fail. Perrow's framework of analyzing risks based on complexity and coupling is unique, and his case studies of major accidents such as Chernobyl and the Challenger disaster offer valuable insights into the social dynamic of technological risk. Perrow's discussion of the Y2K computer problem may seem dated, but his analysis of the conditions that lead to "normal accidents" remains relevant today. Overall, Normal Accidents is a fascinating and thought-provoking book that will make readers rethink their assumptions about safety and risk in our increasingly complex and interconnected world.

Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.