The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why
by Amanda Ripley
List Price:
Our Price: $12.41
You Save: $12.54 (50%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $8.92 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Amanda RipleyEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-10
ISBN: 0307352897
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Crown
Book Reviews of The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why
Book Review: Surviving the Unthinkable: Ripley tells us who and how, and sometimes why
Summary: 5 Stars
Fascinating study of the reactions of victims and survivors of disaster--and why people fall into each category. This book may not save your life in a specific disaster (the practical instructions are limited to such basics as taking the stairs from your office on occasion to be aware of the routes), but it will provide an afternoon's worth of thought-provoking reading while you are waiting for the next one to hit.
Ripley (a Time magazine reporter) knows how to blend fact and personal interest components into a readable account. She identifies a common sequence of reactions of all disaster victims and survivors: Denial, Deliberation, and the Decisive Moment. Within each step of the sequence there are variations in the way people react that contribute to their ability or failure to survive.
Central to the book are accounts of the World Trade Center attacks (both 9/11 and the earlier 1993 basement bombing) and Hurricane Katrina, the most highly-publicised (and American) disasters of recent times, but she also uses examples from other types of disasters like airplane accidents, fires, shooting rampages, and hostage situations from a broad range of places and times.
Ripley mixes personal interviews with official post-mortem records of the disasters and controlled studies and experiments that aim to understand and predict how people will react in disaster situations, and suggest how they should. Again, these suggestions are of more theoretical than practical interest, but you will find yourself reading this straight through to the end like the best fictional thriller.
Summary of The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why
It lurks in the corner of our imagination, almost beyond our ability to see it: the possibility that a tear in the fabric of life could open up without warning, upending a house, a skyscraper, or a civilization.Today, nine out of ten Americans live in places at significant risk of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorism, or other disasters. Tomorrow, some of us will have to make split-second choices to save ourselves and our families. How will we react? What will it feel like? Will we be heroes or victims? Will our upbringing, our gender, our personality-anything we've ever learned, thought, or dreamed of-ultimately matter?
????
Amanda Ripley, an award-winning journalist for Time magazine who has covered some of the most devastating disasters of our age, set out to discover what lies beyond fear and speculation. In this magnificent work of investigative journalism, Ripley retraces the human response to some of history's epic disasters, from the explosion of the Mont Blanc munitions ship in 1917-one of the biggest explosions before the invention of the atomic bomb-to a plane crash in England in 1985 that mystified investigators for years, to the journeys of the 15,000 people who found their way out of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Then, to understand the science behind the stories, Ripley turns to leading brain scientists, trauma psychologists, and other disaster experts, formal and informal, from a Holocaust survivor who studies heroism to a master gunfighter who learned to overcome the effects of extreme fear.
Finally, Ripley steps into the dark corners of her own imagination, having her brain examined by military researchers and experiencing through realistic simulations what it might be like to survive a plane crash into the ocean or to escape a raging fire.
????
Ripley comes back with precious wisdom about the surprising humanity of crowds, the elegance of the brain's fear circuits, and the stunning inadequacy of many of our evolutionary responses. Most unexpectedly, she discovers the brain's ability to do much, much better, with just a little help.
The Unthinkable escorts us into the bleakest regions of our nightmares, flicks on a flashlight, and takes a steady look around. Then it leads us home, smarter and stronger than we were before.
Applied Psychology Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Applied Psychology Books
Focus on the Good Stuff: The Power of Appreciationby Mike Robbins
Your Coach in a Box; Published: 2009-01-06; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $17.94
Price in other shops:
The Momentum Effect: How to Ignite Exceptional Growthby J.C. Larreche
Wharton School Publishing; Published: 2008-04-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.99
Price in other shops:
The Millionaire Mentor: A Simple Way to Get Ahead in Your Work and in Lifeby G. S. Reid
Possibility Press; Published: 2003-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.75
Price in other shops:
The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychologyby Jack Kornfield
Sounds True, Incorporated; Published: 2008-04-01; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $21.95
Price in other shops:
Journal to the Self: Twenty-Two Paths to Personal Growth - Open the Door to Self-Understanding by Writing, Reading, and Creating a Journal of Your Lifeby Kathleen Adams
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 1990-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.30
I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them InsteadRandom House Audio Dimensions; Published: 2006-05-30; Audio Cassette; Book
Price in other shops:
Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Wantby Barbara Sher, Annie Gottlieb
Ballantine Books; Published: 2004-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.45
Price in other shops:
The Ways We Choose: Lessons for Life from a POW's Experienceby Dave Carey
Arnica Publishing; Published: 2005-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.72
Price in other shops:
The Devil, the Lovers, and Me: My Life in Tarotby Kimberlee Auerbach
Dutton Adult; Published: 2007-08-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.19
Price in other shops:
Positive Energy: 10 Extraordinary Prescriptions for Transforming Fatigue, Stress and Fear into Vibrance, Strength, and Love (Random House Large Print (Cloth/ Paper))by Judith Orloff
Random House Large Print; Published: 2004-04-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $38.67
Similar Books and other products
The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Vintage)by Leonard Mlodinow
Vintage; Published: 2009-05-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.94
Price in other shops:
Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapseby James Wesley Rawles
Ulysses Press; Published: 2009-04-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.11
Price in other shops:
98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Aliveby Cody Lundin
Gibbs Smith; Published: 2003-06-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.39
Price in other shops:
Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Thingsby Laurence Gonzales
W.W. Norton & Co.; Published: 2008-09-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.85
Price in other shops:
Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behaviorby Ori Brafman, Rom Brafman
Broadway Business; Published: 2008-06-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.50
Price in other shops:
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)by Tom Vanderbilt
Knopf; Published: 2008-07-29; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.89
Price in other shops:
Outliers: The Story of Successby Malcolm Gladwell
Little, Brown and Company; Published: 2008-11-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.15
Price in other shops:
When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need To Survive When Disaster Strikesby Cody Lundin
Gibbs Smith; Published: 2007-09-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.87
Price in other shops:
Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Whyby Laurence Gonzales
W.W. Norton & Company; W.W. Norton & Co.; Published: 2004-10-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.58
Price in other shops:
The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Lifeby Ben Sherwood
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 2009-01-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.77
Price in other shops: