The Social Roots of Risk

"The book is a tour de force, covering the major scholarly debates and sources of academic contention related to the evolution of risks through organization and institutional actions, community development, and political economy . . . Social Roots of Disaster makes an important contribution tot he literatures on risk, resilience, and disasters. The book is well written, jargon free, compelling, and sophisticated and brings revealing insights into the processes of risk construction and proliferation."—Kevin Fox Gotham, American Journal of Sociology
"The origins of disaster lie in 'the ordinary everyday workings of society', avers sociologist Kathleen Tierney in this brilliant treatise. Drawing on a trove of timely case studies, Tierney analyses how factors such as speculative finance an rampant development allow natural and economic blips to tip more easily into catastrophe."—Barbara Kiser, Nature
"The beginning of the 21st century has been distinguished by a large number of devastating disasters . . . Sociologist Tierney analyzes how to understand the social risks of such disasters as well as the resilience that makes it possible for some communities to better cope with the results of such events . . . The author argues that confronting risk and generating resilience must inevitably involve confronting the powerful and the social arrangements that benefit them . . . Summing Up: Highly Recommended."—E. L. Hirsch, CHOICE
"The origins of disaster lie in 'the ordinary everyday workings of society', avers sociologist Kathleen Tierney in this brilliant treatise. Drawing on a trove of timely case studies, Tierney analyses how factors such as speculative finance and rampant development allow natural and economic blips to tip more easily into catastrophe."—Nature
"If this book is taken seriously, hazards and disaster recovery research and practice will never be the same and we all will be better off for it. I am amazed at the depth and breadth of the research that went into it. Among other things, it is a great history. But what really makes this book critical is that it lays out new directions for how to approach disasters everywhere."—Richard Krajeski, Board Member, Natural Hazards Mitigation Association
"This graceful, but frightening, account is grounded in exemplary research. A masterful examination of the social and institutional basis of risk in our world. It lies neither in nature nor technologies, but is enacted by culture, economics, and political power."—Charles Perrow, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Yale University
"The Social Roots of Risk is a brilliant synthetic work on risk and disaster. It is a masterful accomplishment that will appeal to expert and lay audiences. I hope policy makers read it, and take its messages to heart, because our world can be safer and fairer, as a result. This promises to be an instant classic, penned by one of the world's foremost scholars of risk and disaster. I wish I'd written this book."—Lee Clarke, Rutgers University and author of Acceptable Risk?, Mission Improbable, and Worst Cases
"Kathleen Tierney has things to say that will make your eyes widen and your worldview rearrange itself. She says them with magisterial grounding in scholarship and fieldwork, and in calm, clear language. This book about risk and disaster—and how they get amplified—is fascinating and hugely important as we face an ever-more-turbulent world. A huge influence on my own writing about disaster, Tierney's work doesn't only deserve to but needs to be more widely read."—Rebecca Solnit, author of A Paradise Built in Hell