Product Description

Have you ever wondered how you would react to a disaster? Do you think you would be paralysed with fear, like the diplomat who froze, drink still in hand, as terrorists invaded the Dominican Republic's embassy in Colombia in 1980? Or might you find yourself pretending it hadn't happened, like the 9/11 survivor whose first instinct on feeling the shockwaves of the plane crashing into her building was to stay put? Or then again might you suddenly find hidden strengths in yourself, like Joe Stiley, who not only escaped from a dreadful plane wreck, but also managed to survive thirty minutes in the freezing Potomac river waiting for rescue vehicles to arrive?In "The Unthinkable", award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley talks to risk analysts, psychologists and survivors of some of the most harrowing catastrophes in history in order to piece together how people react in a crisis and why they behave the way they do. She demonstrates that responses ranging from paralysed shock through to frenzied action can be clearly categorised and explained, as can the stages through which most people go when suddenly faced with a disaster - initial denial, cautious deliberation, final decision.She compellingly shows how the rational and irrational parts of our brains interact when put under pressure, and she also reveals the physical effects of sudden stress. And finally she demonstrates that while our reactions are often instinctive and inbuilt, we can also be taught how to master or control them. We all have a 'disaster personality' that reveals itself at moments of crisis. In "The Unthinkable" you can become acquainted with yours. Who knows? One day, understanding how it works may save your life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #222615 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Bloomberg, 7 July 2008
Spiced with surprising factoids, this book might save your life one day.

From the Inside Flap
Have you ever wondered how you would react to a disaster? Do you think you would be paralysed with fear, like the diplomat who froze, drink still in hand, as terrorists invaded the Dominican Republic’s embassy in Colombia in 1980? Or might you find yourself pretending it hadn’t happened, like the 9/11 survivor whose first instinct on feeling the shockwaves of the plane crashing into her building was to stay put? Or then again might you suddenly find hidden strengths in yourself, like Joe Stiley, who not only escaped from a dreadful plane wreck, but also managed to survive thirty minutes in the freezing Potomac river waiting for rescue vehicles to arrive?
In The Unthinkable award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley talks to risk analysts, psychologists and survivors of some of the most harrowing catastrophes in history in order to piece together how people react in a crisis and why they behave the way they do. She demonstrates that responses ranging from paralysed shock through to frenzied action can be clearly categorised and explained, as can the stages through which most people go when suddenly faced with a disaster – initial denial, cautious deliberation, final decision.She compellingly shows how the rational and irrational parts of our brains interact when put under pressure, and she also reveals the physical effects of sudden stress. And finally she demonstrates that while our reactions are often instinctive and inbuilt, we can also be taught how to master or control them.
We all have a ‘disaster personality’ that reveals itself at moments of crisis. In The Unthinkable you can become acquainted with yours .Who knows? One day, understanding how it works may save your life.

From the Back Cover
When the first plane hit the World Trade Center on 9/11, many office workers stayed at their desks. Some made phone calls, some stopped to gather their possessions together, about 1,000 took the time to shut down their computers . Even those who survived waited, on average, an astonishing six minutes before trying to save themselves. Why did they move so slowly when their lives were at risk?
In 1977 a Pan Am 747 awaiting takeoff at Tenerife airport was sliced open without warning by a KLM jet that came out of nowhere. After impact, most passengers remained in their seats, dazed and disbelieving. But sixty-five year old Paul Heck leapt into action and immediately led his wife to safety. How was he able to act so decisively when everyone else in the wrecked fuselage was overcome by shock or confusion?
When Seung-Hui Cho stormed into a French class at Virginia Tech and started shooting students indiscriminately, many people were caught in the gunfire while trying to escape. Clay Violand, however, instinctively crumpled to the floor and lay there completely motionless. In that split second, how was he able to make the decision that may have saved his life?
When faced with extreme circumstances, people behave in surprisingways. How would you react if you had to survive THE UNTHINKABLE?
‘A must read. We need books like this to help us understand the world in which we live.’
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author The Black Swan and Fooled By Randomness

Customer Reviews

This Book Can Save Your Life, Let You Sleep Better at Night, and Learn How to Improve in All Areas
This is the best non-fiction book you are likely to read this year.

I was attracted to this book because I have been in bad car accidents and two hotel fires, once had the airplane window near me break during a flight, designed the plan for an event where the safety team saved two children's lives, and have driven through many dangerous blizzards where every other car was spinning off the road out of control. From those experiences, I learned to appreciate that there were good and bad features about my reactions during those stressful times. I was also astonished to see how many people would have been injured or killed if someone hadn't taken fast and insistent action.

Needless to say, I'm convinced that I will have experiences like these again in the future and wanted to be better prepared. I was very pleased with what I learned as Ms. Ripley explained the psychology and physiology of dealing with various life-threatening situations. With this added information, I'm sure I'll make faster and better decisions in the future . . . and implement those decisions better.

Many books written by journalists about serious subjects don't get much below the surface of who, what, when, where, why, and how of events they wish to use as set pieces. Ms. Ripley is the happy exception to that rule. This author really thinks about what she is studying and went all over the world to gain more information. In addition, she writes well.

I was very impressed by how well she expressed the problem of human beings not knowing what to do if they haven't thought about a problem before or haven't had experience in an area. This is a subject of much interest to me because it is the main barrier to people grasping important opportunities that they are ignoring.

I hope that Ms. Ripley will consider writing a book that looks at why people don't seize opportunities when they are not in a threatening situation. I believe that her recommendations for better leadership, more preparation, clearer directions, advance experience with simulations, and knowing yourself better would apply to that class of problems as well. By combining the two perspectives, I think she could help us understand how to be more successful, as well as safer.

Brava, Ms. Ripley!

A guide for life and living
This might not seem like holiday reading, but I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

The book focuses on the psychology of the human mind in stressful situations and why it sometimes reacts in one way and sometimes in another. This has lessons for us all.

If you ever have to write instructions for use in an emergency, then some of the tips in this book will help you produce really effective instructions (e.g safety instructions or business continuity / disaster recovery plans).

If you are ever unfortunate enough to be in a life threatening situation then, having read this book, you might just make a better decision.

The style of this book is to look at case studies and examine who made good decisions, and who didn't; why they made those decisions; and how we can learn from the scenarios.

It has been said that the first few moments of life can be the most dangerous; in reality the last few can also be a bit dodgy. This book could make the difference to you !

Highly recommended.

Dry, go buy 'Deep Survival'
I think the premise of this book was really sound, and I was really excited about reading it. Regrettably, I had read it after reading Deep survival and as such I found 'Unthinkable' to be boring and not as well written as I would have liked. The book tended to focus on the issues of human failures in scenarios that cause the flight/fight or freeze response. In most parts it tended to read like an encyclopaedia and was about as dry and arid as the Mohave.

As an aside, one of the other things, which really irked me, was the author's selection of members of Israel's armed forces as heroes. This annoyed me because there are many more Palestinians who have survived and handled adversity on a level unbeknownst to many of us. Why not interview the fathers, brothers and mothers who have handled having their children shot in school by Israeli snipers while attending lessons? The author makes it a point to underline how she follows 'the good journalists code' of not paying for interviews, surely another such code is to report in a balanced and fair way?

So, all in all, not an especially illuminating book, read DEEP SURVIVAL, which is a much better and infinitely more interesting read. I did give 'Unthinkable' 3 stars because of the research done, but the book lost 2 stars because of the immensely boring writing style and poor choice of models.