Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear. Dan Gardner - Softcover

Dan-gardner

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0753515539 ISBN 13: 9780753515532

Publisher: VIRGIN BOOKS, 2009

Synopsis

Risk

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Every day, we suffer a barrage of warnings about the threat of terrorism, war and apocalypse. The news is a parade of horrors. Anxiety is the stuff of daily life. And yet the statistics say we are the safest and healthiest humans who ever lived. How is this possible?

In this ground-breaking new book, Dan Gardner explains how we perceive risk, and examines the psychology that drives our fears. Analysing our risk perception as the combination of the brain's two simultaneous responses -- the intuitive feeling and the rational, considered response -- he throws light on our paranoia about paedophiles, chemical contamination, and suicide bombs, and explains why the significant threats to our lives are actually the mundane risks we pay little attention to.

Speaking to psychologists, economists, and scientists, Gardner reveals not only how we make judgments but how those judgments are influenced by corporations, politicians, activists and the media -- all of which have an interest in promoting irrational fear. In doing so, he explains one of the central puzzles of our time: Why are the safest and healthiest people in history living in a culture of fear?

From the Back Cover

You Have Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself. In the year following September 11th 1,595 people died on America’s roads, as a direct result of having fled the airports to be safe from terrorism. The homicide rate in England was fourteen times higher in the Middle Ages than it is now. Worldwide, there are fewer than eighty unprovoked shark attacks per year. Poorly wired Christmas tree lights claim more victims than sharks.

Edition details

• Publisher: VIRGIN BOOKS
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0753515539
• ISBN 13: 9780753515532
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416