Full name: Inviting Disaster: Lessons From the Edge of Technology

Author: James R. Chiles Year: 2001 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Non Fiction, Science, History Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780066620824 0066620821

Combining captivating storytelling with eye-opening findings, Inviting Disaster delves inside some of history's worst catastrophes in order to show how increasingly "smart" systems leave us wide open to human tragedy.Weaving a dramatic narrative that explains how breakdowns in these systems result in such disasters as the chain reaction crash of the Air France Concorde to the meltdown at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station, Chiles vividly demonstrates how the battle between man and machine may be escalating beyond manageable limits -- and why we all have a stake in its outcome. Included in this edition is a special introduction providing a behind-the-scenes look at the World Trade Center catastrophe. Combining firsthand accounts of employees' escapes with an in-depth look at the structural reasons behind the towers' collapse, Chiles addresses the question, Were the towers "two tall heroes" or structures with a fatal flaw? Similar books: The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester The Engines of Our Ingenuity by John Lienhard The Evolution of Useful Things by Henry Petroski How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson The Pencil by Henry Petroski The Toothpick by Henry Petroski The Glass Cage by Nicholas Carr The Chip by T. R. Reid The Code Book by Simon Singh The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert Cod by Mark Kurlansky Salt by Mark Kurlansky The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough Hackers by Steven Levy The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan The Cracking Code Book by Simon Singh