Reviews for Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation

The average rating for Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation based on 2 reviews is 1.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-05-14 00:00:00 Randye Fletcher We can only imagine the damage that a nuclear weapon can cause, we can read articles and hear news about it but we not fully understand all the effects of a nuclear weapon. We are not scientist and we are not military so it is ok for us not to understand completely the damage that it cause We believe that the military and the scientist involved in that area (that study the effects, that design the weapons, etc.) know. In the book 'Whole World on Fire', Lynn Eden shows how the US government underestimated the damage that nuclear weapons can cause by ignoring the effect that mass fire damage can cause. The book relates how the government developed models to calculate effect from the blast but constantly ignored the fire because of the "difficulty" of predicting the effect of the fire. Ignoring the effect of fire in a nuclear weapon makes believe that the weapon is not as powerful as it really is. Eden focus her study in a discussion that is not fully closed, where scientist are still discussing the matter if fire damage should be taken into account or not. This makes the book fascinating in a way because it involves the reader into a story that hasn't had a satisfactory conclusion for the scientist involved. I must clarified that the author is biased towards the need of including fire damage into the calculation of damage caused by a nuclear weapon and make strong arguments about it. Other scholars have criticized her for taking a side, arguing that as a sociologist you shouldn't intervene in the discussion of the scientist but Eden is conscious of her decision and argues that it is her right to take a side as long as the facts come to the light, making sure that her bias does not prevent that. Who are the people to discuss about technology and its development? Not only scientist can be involved, but the discussion should be led by many people involved because at the end society is affected by those decisions. If facts prove that fire damage can be calculate then the discussion of including them in the damage created by nuclear weapons should involve not only the scientist that study them. Eden's work is based on social constructivism shows the social component on the calculation of damage caused by nuclear weapons. She uses the concept of organizational routines, organizational frames and path dependence to unfold her study. Hugh Gusterson claims that her work can be seen as two separate book one that elaborates the work as social constructivism, opening the black box, and another that deals with the bureaucracy. I think the even though the two topics can be separate and can be seen clearly in the book, it is the combination of this that make the complete picture of what Eden wants to portrait with the use of the three concepts mention above. At the end of the book Eden mentions technological catastrophes and tries to compare them to the fact that fire damage is not being calculated in the damage caused by nuclear weapons. I think that this is not so complete and the comparisons do not match. I know that it is difficult for her to prove her point since there hasn't been a nuclear attack since the ones in Japan. To study a problem that hasn't had a satisfactory conclusion shows the courage that the author has as well as her abilities. The merger of the three concepts helped her proved her point, even if others scholars thought that that help prove technological momentum not much her point.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-11-05 00:00:00 Karl Herreshoff I think this might be meant as a textbook. Very dry. I read a little, skimmed even more and then gave up.