For students in any course on technology and society, or technological risk.
Technological breakthroughs have revolutionized our lives, but some of them have also led to catastrophe. In this book, two leading experts in technological risk assessment and mitigation analyze nearly three dozen disasters―from Chernobyl to Challenger, the Bhopal gas leak to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. They present lessons learned and preventive strategies for all four leading causes of disaster: technical design, human factors, organizational system factors, and socio-cultural factors. They also identify appropriate preventive roles for every participant in technological systems, from corporations to individual citizens.
WILLIAM M. EVAN is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Management at the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught at The Wharton School, MIT's Sloan Management School, the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, and Columbia University's Graduate School of Business and has served as research sociologist for Bell Laboratories. The author of over 100 articles for various professional journals, Evan's books include Organization Theory: Research and Design, Knowledge and Power in a Global Society, Preventing World War III, and Nuclear Proliferation and the Legality of Nuclear Weapons. He currently consults with major corporations and government agencies on issues including organizational design and crisis management.
MARK MANION is an Assistant Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA and directs Drexel's philosophy program. His interests include the ethics and politics of risk assessment, the social effects of technology, engineering ethics, the philosophy of technology, and crisis management. His publications have appeared in the International Journal of Technology Management, International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management, Technology in Society, Computers and Society, The Journal of Information Ethics, and many other leading professional journals.