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Risk (Paperback)

by John Adams (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
RRP: £25.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: UCL press; first edition edition (16 Feb 1995)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1857280687
  • ISBN-13: 978-1857280685
  • Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.5 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 43,729 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

This work aims to bring the multifarious field of risk studies sharply into focus in a readable way for a wide readership throughout the social sciences and beyond.

From the Back Cover

Risk compensation postulates that everyone has a "risk thermostat" and that safety measures that do not affect the setting of the thermostat will be circumvented by behaviour that re-establishes the level of risk with which people were originally comfortable. It explains why, for example, motorists drive faster after a bend in the road is straightened. Cultural theory explains risk-taking behaviour by the operation of cultural filters. It postulates that behaviour is governed by the probable costs and benefits of alternative courses of action which are perceived through filters formed from all the previous incidents and associations in the risk-taker's life.; "Risk" should be of interest to many readers throughout the social sciences and in the world of industry, business, engineering, finance and public administration, since it deals with a fundamental part of human behaviour that has enormous financial and economic implications.
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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A book that must be read, 16 Oct 2000
Anyone who can grasp the concepts discussed in this book should read it; it has universal relevance. Adams strips bare the very shaky assumptions upon which much risk assessment is based in the world. It was a shock to me, and I expect it will be a shock to most people. To use a cliche: This book changed my life. More accurately, it changed my world-view. If you need more convincing, take a look at the commendations on the back cover. Any book that can debunk so much of conventional doctrine on road safety, environmentalism, medicine, and so on, yet draw such acclaim from such a diverse range of specialist publications is a book to be reckoned with! As a final note, the book is really very small. However, it is brief and to-the-point; his two hundred pages are worth a thousand from most writers.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The argument for rational fatalism, 16 May 2007
I've just finished reading "Risk" by John Adams and "Fooled by Randomness" by Nicholas Taleb. They make good companions. Both are illuminating and refreshingly entertaining. And both have the same main target: proponents of the view that risk is an objective phenomenon that can be measured and managed.

"Risk" Adams contends is a word that refers to a future that exists only in the imagination. It is inescapably subjective. Taleb, who is a New York trader, is especially [...] those who are fooled by randomness - deluded souls who believe that luck can be managed, that future prices can be divined by a study of past prices - and that such divinations will make them rich. The iconic case, with which Taleb has great sport, is the collapse of Long Term Capital Management. Two directors of LTCM, Merton and Scholes, received Nobel prizes for their development of the luck management methods that produced the collapse.

Adams, writing before the fall of LTCM, puts his finger on its cause. Merton and Scholes were not detached scientists observing something that could be objectively measured, they were players in the game, influencing, and being influenced by, all the other players.

Adams' most interesting, and sadly neglected, case study of the interactive nature of risk management is his demolition of the myth of the efficacy of seat belt legislation. Nowhere in the world, he shows, have seat belt laws saved lives. Everywhere they have resulted in a transfer of the burden of risk from those best-protected in cars to the most vulnerable outside cars, pedestrians and cyclists.

Five stars to both Adams and Taleb!

PS Your previous reviewer, Leitch, is wrong on his two "fundamental" points.
1. His belief that the risk associated with the rise and fall of shares is predictable. If he is not persuaded by Adams and Taleb, he might try When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management by Lowenstein, or Googling "Brian Hunter Amaranth" for examples of the disasters experienced by those who shared his belief in the predictability of share prices and natural gas prices.
2. His conclusion that Adams argues that motorists have a fixed "favourite level of risk". One of Adams' most useful insights is that propensity to take risk varies with the perceived rewards of risk taking.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply a superb book., 2 Aug 2006
By Les Hatton (Kingston on Thames, UK) - See all my reviews
Society in general seeks to quantify risk. This book shows why most such exercises are completely futile because of the phenomenon of 'risk compensation'. In brief, make something safer and humans typically respond by taking more risks elsewhere to compensate.

I recommend this book unreservedly. Its one of the very few I have come across which has a supremely important point to make and makes it in a clear, well-argued and compact way, supported by lots of interesting data; a revelation. Buy it now, it is every bit as relevant now as it was when it was written.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh Ideas for a society obsessed.
I attended a lecture of John Adams recently which led to me reading the book. It is really brilliant. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Luke says

2.0 out of 5 stars Simply wrong on two fundamental points
I read "Risk" a couple of weeks ago and quickly realised that it had a lot to say about the author's personal battles down the decades with people who disagreed with him. Read more
Published on 22 April 2007 by Matthew Leitch

5.0 out of 5 stars A "must-read" book
It's incredible how many well-meaning attempts to make society "safer" fail, foundering on society's apparent unwillingness to be safe. Read more
Published on 27 Jun 2004 by Guy Chapman

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-read
I am an economist, and found the nature and subject of this book fascinating. It really is an important and powerful work.
Published on 27 Mar 2004 by Mr Anthony J Evans

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent and thought provoking book
Risk is poorly understood, and decisions arre often made on the basis of misunderstanding. Adams explores common misconceptions (seatbelts, helmets, power) and exposes many of... Read more
Published on 6 Oct 1999 by macrecumbent

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