Books about Unthinkable from Amazon.com

It lurks in the corner of our imagination, almost beyond our ability to see it: the possibility that a tear in the fabric of life could open up without warning, upending a house, a skyscraper, or a civilization

Today, nine out of ten Americans live in places at significant risk of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorism, or other disasters. Tomorrow, some of us will have to make split-second choices to save ourselves and our families. How will we react? What will it feel like? Will we be heroes or victims? Will our upbringing, our gender, our personality–anything we’ve ever learned, thought, or dreamed of–ultimately matter?
    
Amanda Ripley, an award-winning journalist for Time magazine who has covered some of the most devastating disasters of our age, set out to discover what lies beyond fear and speculation. In this magnificent work of investigative journalism, Ripley retraces the human response to some of history’s epic disasters, from the explosion of the Mont Blanc munitions ship in 1917–one of the biggest explosions before the invention of the atomic bomb–to a plane crash in England in 1985 that mystified investigators for years, to the journeys of the 15,000 people who found their way out of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Then, to understand the science behind the stories, Ripley turns to leading brain scientists, trauma psychologists, and other disaster experts, formal and informal, from a Holocaust survivor who studies heroism to a master gunfighter who learned to overcome the effects of extreme fear.

Finally, Ripley steps into the dark corners of her own imagination, having her brain examined by military researchers and experiencing through realistic simulations what it might be like to survive a plane crash into the ocean or to escape a raging fire.
    
Ripley comes back with precious wisdom about the surprising humanity of crowds, the elegance of the brain’s fear circuits, and the stunning inadequacy of many of our evolutionary responses. Most unexpectedly, she discovers the brain’s ability to do much, much better, with just a little help.

The Unthinkable escorts us into the bleakest regions of our nightmares, flicks on a flashlight, and takes a steady look around. Then it leads us home, smarter and stronger than we were before..
Price: $14.20 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Carol Kent's life changed forever when her twenty-five year old son, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a lieutenant in the navy with an impeccable military record, shot and killed his wife's ex-husband

Through this devastating set of circumstances, Carol learned ten transformational power principles that God has taught her in the midst of all her agony. For the first time, best-selling author and popular speaker Carol Kent is ready to share her story with the world. It will change the way you think about personal challenges..
Price: $11.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From Copernicus to Darwin, to current-day thinkers, scientists have always promoted theories and unveiled discoveries that challenge everything society holds dear; ideas with both positive and dire consequences. Many thoughts that resonate today are dangerous not because they are assumed to be false, but because they might turn out to be true.

What do the world's leading scientists and thinkers consider to be their most dangerous idea? Through the leading online forum Edge (www.edge.org), the call went out, and this compelling and easily digestible volume collects the answers. From using medication to permanently alter our personalities to contemplating a universe in which we are utterly alone, to the idea that the universe might be fundamentally inexplicable, What Is Your Dangerous Idea? takes an unflinching look at the daring, breathtaking, sometimes terrifying thoughts that could forever alter our world and the way we live in it.

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Price: $6.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From product defects to environmental disasters—almost every day a new corporate crisis hits the headlines In the majority of cases the results are disastrous: costly and time-consuming efforts to establish a positive public image can be wiped out in seconds. The inadequate, and often damaging, response of American business to such adversity proves that we don’t need better crisis management—we need crisis leadership. Ian Mitroff offers a new proactive approach that focuses on doing everything humanly possible to prevent crisis before they happen, rather than merely putting the best possible spin on the aftermath. In easy-to-read, accessible language, Mitroff presents the critical, key lessons that will help managers lead the organization through a major crisis..
Price: $52.49 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Disaster Recovery Planning, Third Edition is a comprehensive, up-to-the-minute, IT professional's guide to planning for disaster recovery without hiring expensive consultants or implementing proprietary methodologies. It has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect new strategies and technologies -- and the lessons of 9/11, as witnessed first-hand by the author, who wrote the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's disaster recovery plan. Jon William Toigo presents step-by-step coverage of disaster recovery techniques that reflect the latest technologies in data storage, networks, server systems, and the Internet. Toigo presents focused, hands-on coverage of the disaster recovery issues that matter most to your organization, including Web, e-commerce, and ERP/supply chain disaster recovery; low-cost steps you can take right now to dramatically reduce your risks; and much more. This edition's extensive new coverage includes new data storage topologies, data re-hosting issues, protecting against ongoing power outages such as those recently faced in California; new mailroom procedures; new physical access controls; and much more..
Price: $34.76 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, would remain on the throne for the foreseeable future: This was the firm conclusion of a top-secret CIA analysis issued in October 1978. One hundred days later the shah--despite his massive military, fearsome security police, and superpower support was overthrown by a popular and largely peaceful revolution. But the CIA was not alone in its myopia, as Charles Kurzman reveals in this penetrating work; Iranians themselves, except for a tiny minority, considered a revolution inconceivable until it actually occurred. Revisiting the circumstances surrounding the fall of the shah, Kurzman offers rare insight into the nature and evolution of the Iranian revolution and into the ultimate unpredictability of protest movements in general.

As one Iranian recalls, "The future was up in the air." Through interviews and eyewitness accounts, declassified security documents and underground pamphlets, Kurzman documents the overwhelming sense of confusion that gripped pre-revolutionary Iran, and that characterizes major protest movements. His book provides a striking picture of the chaotic conditions under which Iranians acted, participating in protest only when they expected others to do so too, the process approaching critical mass in unforeseen and unforeseeable ways. Only when large numbers of Iranians began to "think the unthinkable," in the words of the U.S. ambassador, did revolutionary expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A corrective to 20-20 hindsight, this book reveals shortcomings of analyses that make the Iranian revolution or any major protest movement seem inevitable in retrospect.

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Price: $17.94 [Notify me when price goes down.]

It's 1977. Jacob Green, a Jewish kid from suburban New Jersey, sits on the stairs during his family's housewarming party, waiting for his father, Abram--charming host, everyone's best friend, and amateur emcee--to introduce him to the crowd. Housewarming parties, Annie Hall parties, and bar mitzvah parties punctuate Jacob's childhood and require command performances by all the Green family members. But when the confetti settles and the drapes are drawn, the affable Abram Green becomes an egotistical tyrant whose emotional rages rupture the lives of his family.

Jacob doesn't mean to disappoint his father, but he can't help thinking the most unthinkable (and very funny) thoughts about public-school humiliation, Hebrew-school disinclination, and in-home sex education (with the live-in nanny!). If only his mother hadn't started college at thirty-six (and fallen for her psychology professor). If only he were more like his rebellious older brother (suspended from Hebrew school for drawing the rabbi in a threesome with a lobster and a pig). If only Jacob could confront his overbearing father and tell him he doesn't want to sing in synagogue, attend est classes, write the perfect thank-you note, or even live in the same house with Abram Green. But, of course, he can't. That would be unthinkable.

This self-assured, comic, yet piercing first novel deftly captures the struggle of an imperfect boy trying to become a suitable son..
Price: $4.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In the eloquent style for which he has become famous, Charles Lemert writes of social theory as no one else. Thinking the Unthinkable is offered as text for instruction, yet it defies the prevailing assumption that social theory is a method for clarifying the facts of social life. Lemert shows how social theory began late in the 19th century as a struggle to come to terms with the failure of modern reason to solve the social problems created by the capitalist world-system. Since then, social theory has developed through twists and turns to think and rethink this Unthinkable. Hence the surprising innovations of recent years - postmodern, queer, postcolonial, third-wave feminist, risk theories, among others arising in the wake of globalization. Once again, Lemert has made the difficult clear in a book that students and other readers will treasure and keep..
Price: $20.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Did U.S. intelligence know of Japan's coming attack on Pearl Harbor? Did President Roosevelt know? If so, why did he withhold warnings from the commanders in Hawaii? The answers are embedded in the cogent analysis of The Pearl Harbor Myth. Based on voluminous data that does not appear in other books on the topic, it discusses in detail Roosevelt's developing strategy-both military and diplomatic-and his secret alliances to save the world from Hitler. It contains a wealth of fresh material on secret diplomacy; on secret military strategy, planning, and intelligence; and on disguised combat operations that began six months before the Pearl Harbor attack..
Price: $10.79 [Notify me when price goes down.]