Worst cases

Description

Al Qaeda detonates a nuclear weapon in Times Square during rush hour, wiping out half of Manhattan and killing 500,000 people. A virulent strain of bird flu jumps to humans in Thailand, sweeps across Asia, and claims more than fifty million lives. A single freight car of chlorine derails on the outskirts of Los Angeles, spilling its contents and killing seven million. An asteroid ten kilometers wide slams into the Atlantic Ocean, unleashing a tsunami that renders life on the planet as we know it extinct. Social science. Large print. Risk assessment.

Description

"In this book, Lee Clarke surveys the full range of possible catastrophes that animate and dominate the popular imagination, from toxic spills and terrorism to plane crashes and pandemics. Along the way, he explores how the ubiquity of worst cases in everyday life has rendered them ordinary and mundane: very real threats like a killer flu or an American Hiroshima have become so common that they have lost their ability to shock us. Fear and dread, Clarke argues, are often completely sensible: when the public has more substantial information and more credible warnings it will take worst cases as seriously as it should."--Jacket.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Worst cases: terror and catastrophe in the popular imaginationUniversity of Chicago Press2006-01-01
• Worst casesUniversity of Chicago Press2006-01-01
• Worst casesRead How You Want2011-01-01