The Limits of Safety:
Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons
Scott D. Sagan

Winner of the 1993 Best Book Award of the Science, Technology, and Environmental Studies Section of the American Political Science Association

Paper | 1995 | $35.00 / £24.95 | ISBN: 9780691021010
302 pp. | 6 x 9 | 8 figs. 5 tables

Shopping Cart | Reviews | Table of Contents

Environmental tragedies such as Chernobyl and the Exxon Valdez remind us that catastrophic accidents are always possible in a world full of hazardous technologies. Yet, the apparently excellent safety record with nuclear weapons has led scholars, policy-makers, and the public alike to believe that nuclear arsenals can serve as a secure deterrent for the foreseeable future. In this provocative book, Scott Sagan challenges such optimism. Sagan's research into formerly classified archives penetrates the veil of safety that has surrounded U.S. nuclear weapons and reveals a hidden history of frightening "close calls" to disaster.

Reviews:

"An extraordinary book.... Normal accidents theory and high reliability theory took the theory of accidents out of the hands of economists and engineers and put it into the hands of organization theorists; Sagan has brought that theory of accidents much closer to maturity."--Charles Perrow, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management

"Scott Sagan's book is nothing less than a tour de force.... It is by far the most carefully researched and painstaking study of nuclear weapons safety ever written."--Security Studies
"Grounded in original research in U.S. national security archives, Limits of Safety reveals a disturbing history of near-catastrophes in the handling of nuclear weapons and bombers.... This book is a significant contribution to ... international security studies, organizational theory, and risk analysis."--American Political Science Review

"Scott Sagan's book is nothing less than a tour de force.... It is by far the most carefully researched and painstaking study of nuclear weapons safety ever written."--Bruce G. Blair, Security Studies

"Sagan's stories also drive a wooden stake through the heart of rational choice nuclear deterrence theory. This book will make you scared ... will make you hold your children a little tighter at the end of the day."--Lee Clarke, Sociological Forum

"Sagan shows, both explicitly for nuclear weapons and implicitly for intellectual systems, that neither learning nor disasters are essentially matters of improving O-rings, safety procedures, or t-tests, as participants within those systems would like to believe. The primary adaptive action is offstage--in the background framework itself. And at that level, through sheer volume of its data, Sagan's book will shape the way that policymakers and we (with a little less confidence) understand the nuclear world."--Contemporary Sociology

More reviews

Table of Contents:

	List of Figures and Tables
	Acknowledgments
	List of Acronyms
	Introduction: Expecting the Unexpected	3
Ch. 1	The Origins of Accidents	11
Ch. 2	Nuclear Weapons Safety during the Cuban Missile Crisis	53
Ch. 3	Intelligence and Warning during the Cuban Missile Crisis	117
Ch. 4	Redundancy and Reliability: The 1968 Thule Bomber Accident	156
Ch. 5	Learning by Trial and Terror	204
Ch. 6	The Limits of Safety	250
	Index	281

Another Princeton book by Scott Douglas Sagan:

• Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security.

Series:

• Princeton Studies in International History and Politics
  G. John Ikenberry and Marc Trachtenberg, Series Editors

Subject Areas:

• American History
• Political Science and International Relations
• Sociology

Hardcover published in 1993

Shopping Cart:

For customers in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia
Paper: $35.00 ISBN: 9780691021010

For customers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and India
Paper: £24.95 ISBN: 9780691021010

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