Normal Accidents - (Princeton Paperbacks) by Charles Perrow (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Normal Accidents analyzes the social side of technological risk. Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety--building in more warnings and safeguards--fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable. He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents. (At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk--complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling--this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them.

The first edition fulfilled one reviewer's prediction that it "may mark the beginning of accident research." In the new afterword to this edition Perrow reviews the extensive work on the major accidents of the last fifteen years, including Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Challenger disaster. The new postscript probes what the author considers to be the "quintessential 'Normal Accident'" of our time: the Y2K computer problem.

Review Quotes

"Normal Accidents is a testament to the value of rigorous thinking when applied to a critical problem."---Nick Pidgeon, Nature

"[Normal Accidents is] a penetrating study of catastrophes and near catastrophes in several high-risk industries. Mr. Perrow ... writes lucidly and makes it clear that `normal' accidents are the inevitable consequences of the way we launch industrial ventures.... An outstanding analysis of organizational complexity."---John Pfeiffer, The New York Times

"[Perrow's] research undermines promises that `better management' and `more operator training' can eliminate catastrophic accidents. In doing so, he challenges us to ponder what could happen to justice, community, liberty, and hope in a society where such events are normal."---Deborah A. Stone, Technology Review

About the Author

Charles Perrow is Professor of Sociology at Yale University. His other books include The Radical Attack on Business, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay, and The AIDS Disaster: The Failure of Organizations in New York and the Nation.