Worst Cases - by Lee Clarke (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

We consider the few who live in fear of such scenarios to be alarmist or even paranoid. But Worst Cases shows that such individuals-like Cassandra foreseeing the fall of Troy-are more reasonable and prescient than you might think. 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. Fear and dread, Clarke argues, have actually become too rare: only when the public has more substantial information and more credible warnings will it take worst cases as seriously as it should.

A timely and necessary look into how we think about the unthinkable, Worst Cases will be must reading for anyone attuned to our current climate of threat and fear.

Review Quotes

"Clarke divides people into probabilists and possibilists. Much modern scientific and governmental policy about disasters, he claims, emerges from probabilistic thinking--'What's the likelihood that the nuclear plant will melt down?'--while possibilistic or 'worst-case thinking, ' asks, 'What happens if the nuclear plant has a really bad day?' Clarke asserts that we engage in worst-case thinking as individuals every day. . . . But when risk assessment broadens from individual decision making to societal setting of policy by 'elites and institutions, ' probabilists rule, and too often stigmatize possibilists as irrational."

--Carlin Romano "Chronicle of Higher Education"

"Worst Cases is superb--written in a dry and personable style and filled with riveting examples and empirical surprises. Clarke reveals that the high frequency of catastrophes and our attempts to rationalize them have put them in a category where they no longer shock us. He also demonstrates that these worst cases open a window onto our society and culture because they shed light on our expectations, our valued icons, and our social structure. This is a timely and incredibly relevant book."--Charles Perrow, author of Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies

"A brilliantly original piece of work. It highlights the ubiquitous nature of everyday as well as uncommon sources of risk and the unexpected ways in which commonplace risks may create conditions that potentiate the occurrence of worst-case events. . . . This is a very important book that deserves to be widely read by policy makers and laypeople alike."--James A. Moses "PsycCritique (APA)"

"A welcome contribution to the CIP [Critical Infrastructure Protection] debate and the dialogue in Organization Studies about control and accidents. It is very accessible, and although a little morbid, it is an intriguing read."--Kevin Quigley, Public Administration--Kevin Quigley "Public Administration"

"The timing of Worst Cases could not be better. It considers what is on everyone's mind but has remained, until this point, the elephant in the room. While many books have addressed this worst case or that one, none have confronted the extensiveness of the problem or the accumulation of worst cases, the concerns they have raised, how we think about them, and what should be done. This is an excellent and important book that needs to be widely read."--Diane Vaughan, author of The Challenger Launch Decision

"Clarke's book... is even more timely in 2021 than it was when first published. Clarke wants ordinary citizens and policymakers to pay more attention to potential catastrophic events: events improbable, but still possible, with consequences so severe that we ignore them at our peril."-- "First Things"

"The practical need for improvisation at all levels of societal response is unquestionable, particularly for major disasters, and Clarke's book provides a stimulus for the basic and applied studies that are needed."-- "American Journal of Sociology"

About the Author

Lee Clarke is a sociologist at Rutgers University. He is the author of Mission Improbable: Using Fantasy Documents to Tame Disaster, published by the University of Chicago Press, and Acceptable Risk? Making Decisions in a Toxic Environment. He is also the editor of Terrorism and Disaster: New Threats, New Ideas.