Worst cases : terror and catastrophe in the popular imagination / Lee Clarke.

By:

Clarke, Lee Ben

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c2006.Description: xi, 213 p. ; 24 cmISBN:

0226108597 (cloth : alk. paper)

DDC classification:

303.48/5 22

LOC classification:

HV551.2 .C533 2006

Contents:

1. Worst cases : be afraid, be very afraid -- 2. The sky could be falling : globally relevant disasters and the perils of probabilism -- 3. What's the worst that can happen? -- 4. Power, politics, and panic in worst cases -- 5. Silver linings : the good from the worst -- 6. Living and dying in worst case worlds.

Review: "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."--BOOK JACKET.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Books	Australian Emergency Management Library	BOOK	303.485 CLA (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		900162348

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Previous	303.485 BAR Social organization under stress: a sociological review of disaster studies.	303.485 BRI Towards a reconceptualization of disaster for the enhancement of social preparedness.	303.485 CAR Disaster and the sequence-pattern concept of social change.	303.485 CLA Worst cases : terror and catastrophe in the popular imagination /	303.485 DIS Disasters : image and context.	303.485 DRA Human system responses to disaster: an inventory of sociological findings.	303.485 DRA Human system responses to disaster: an inventory of sociological findings.	Next

Includes bibliographical references (p. [187]-195) and index.

"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."--BOOK JACKET.

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