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This is a timely and brilliant book. As the panic over swine flu wanes, it's easy to agree with Alcabes's point about our investment in disaster narratives being more powerful than our ability to be rational.
This book comments on the way people and governments have manipulated our fears of disaster for unexpected and non-useful purposes. Selling newspapers, consolidating power, for example. We need to hew to the basics--a good standard of living for everyone. I found this argument really enlightening. Though it is counter-intuitive, Alcabes really persuades, with lots of facts and really good arguments. He covers SARS and AIDS and Obesity and Autism, and more.
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Dread: How Fear and Fantasy Have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to the Avian Flu by Philip Alcabes
NYC_Mom, May 1, 2009
This is a timely and brilliant book. As the panic over swine flu wanes, it's easy to agree with Alcabes's point about our investment in disaster narratives being more powerful than our ability to be rational.This book comments on the way people and governments have manipulated our fears of disaster for unexpected and non-useful purposes. Selling newspapers, consolidating power, for example. We need to hew to the basics--a good standard of living for everyone. I found this argument really enlightening. Though it is counter-intuitive, Alcabes really persuades, with lots of facts and really good arguments. He covers SARS and AIDS and Obesity and Autism, and more.
(1 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)