50
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • Bookseller Displays
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store

Don't Miss

  • Scientifically Proven Sale
  • Staff Top Fives of 2022
  • Best Books of 2022
  • Powell's Author Events
  • Oregon Battle of the Books
  • Audio Books

Visit Our Stores


Powell's Staff: New Literature in Translation: December 2022 and January 2023 (0 comment)
It may be a new year, this may be a list of new books, but our love for literature in translation hasn’t changed at all, and we are so pleased to be enthusiastically recommending these recent releases. On this list, you’ll find a Spanish novel where controversy swirls around a Coca-Cola billboard...
Read More»
  • Kelsey Ford: From the Stacks: J. M. Ledgard's Submergence (0 comment)
  • Kelsey Ford: Five Book Friday: Year of the Rabbit (1 comment)

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

Normal Accidents Living with High Risk Technologies

by Charles Perrow
Normal Accidents Living with High Risk Technologies

  • Comment on this title
  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9780691004129
ISBN10: 0691004129
Condition: Standard


All Product Details

View Larger ImageView Larger Images
Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$12.95
List Price:$39.95
Used Trade Paperback
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
QtyStore
1Local Warehouse

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

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 time: the Y2K computer problem.

Review

"[Normal Accidents is] a penetrating study of catastrophes and near catastrophes in several high-risk industries. Mr. Perrow ... writes lucidly and makes it clear that `normal' accidents are the inevitable consequences of the way we launch industrial ventures.... An outstanding analysis of organizational complexity."--John Pfeiffer, The New York Times

Review

[Normal Accidents is] a penetrating study of catastrophes and near catastrophes in several high-risk industries. Mr. Perrow ... writes lucidly and makes it clear that `normal' accidents are the inevitable consequences of the way we launch industrial ventures.... An outstanding analysis of organizational complexity. -- John Pfeiffer, The New York Times [Perrow's] research undermines promises that `better management' and `more operator training' can eliminate catastrophic accidents. In doing so, he challenges us to ponder what could happen to justice, community, liberty, and hope in a society where such events are normal. -- Deborah A. Stone, Technology Review

Review

"[Perrow's] research undermines promises that `better management' and `more operator training' can eliminate catastrophic accidents. In doing so, he challenges us to ponder what could happen to justice, community, liberty, and hope in a society where such events are normal."--Deborah A. Stone, Technology Review

Review

"Normal Accidents is a testament to the value of rigorous thinking when applied to a critical problem."--Nick Pidgeon, Nature

Review

Normal Accidents is a testament to the value of rigorous thinking when applied to a critical problem. Deborah A. Stone - Technology Review

Synopsis

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 time: the Y2K computer problem.


Description

Includes bibliographical references (p. 426-439) and index.

Table of Contents

Abnormal Blessings vii

Introduction 3

1. Normal Accident at Three Mile Island 15

2. Nuclear Power as a High-Risk System: Why We Have Not Had More TMIs--But Will Soon 32

3. Complexity, Coupling, and Catastrophe 62

4. Petrochemical Plants 101

5. Aircraft and Airways 123

6. Marine Accidents 170

7. Earthbound Systems: Dams, Quakes, Mines, and Lakes 232

8. Exotics: Space, Weapons, and DNA 256

9. Living with High-Risk Systems 304

Afterword 353

Postscript: The Y2K Problem 388

List of Acronyms 413

Notes 415

Bibliography 426

Index 441


What Our Readers Are Saying

Be the first to share your thoughts on this title!




Product Details

ISBN:
9780691004129
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
10/17/1999
Publisher:
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Series info:
Princeton Paperbacks
Pages:
464
Height:
234.95 mm
Width:
152.4 mm
Thickness:
1.00
Series:
Princeton Paperbacks
Copyright Year:
1999
Author:
Charles Perrow
Author:
Charles Perrow
Subject:
Risk assessment
Subject:
Technology
Subject:
Economics
Subject:
Science Reference-Technology
Subject:
Social aspects
Subject:
Accidents
Subject:
Sociology
Subject:
Accidents, Occupational
Subject:
Industrial accidents

Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$12.95
List Price:$39.95
Used Trade Paperback
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
QtyStore
1Local Warehouse

More copies of this ISBN

  • New, Trade Paperback, $42.95
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Transparency ACT MRF
  • Sitemap
  • © 2023 POWELLS.COM Terms

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##