Excerpts: “In short, the most important feature of a disaster is whether or not there is contagion–that is, some way of propagating the initial shock through the biological networks of life or the social networks of humanity. Thus, no disaster can be understood without some appreciation of network science” (p. 103).

“The number of steps between the revolutionary crowd and the totalitarian state has more than once proved to be surpisingly small. The seemingly rigid structures of a hierarchical order can disintegrate with equal rapidity” (p. 116).

“We see here the way a pandemic of infectious disease can easily precipitate a pandemic of extreme behavior, which in turn further destabilizes the social order” (p. 136).

“Third, the continued rapid growth of international air travel represented an increase in contagion risk equal to, and quite possibly greater than, any concurrent advances in medical science” (p. 245).

“What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then? What else is left but to abandon even the hope of truth and content ourselves instead with stories? In these stories, it doesn’t matter who the heroes are. All we want to know is ‘Who is to blame?'” (p. 270).

“In the Soviet Union, the central government had too much power. In the United States, power is distributed to too many federal, state, and local agencies. More than 150 different agencies were involved in the Three Mile Island emergency and the public communications about it. To say that their efforts were poorly communicated would be an understatement” (p. 282).

“Most disasters occur when a complex system goes critical, usually as a result of some small perturbation. The extent to which the exogenous shock causes a disaster is generally a function of the social network structure that comes under stress. The point of failure, if it can be located at all, is more likely to be in the middle layer than at the top of the organization chart” (p. 283).

“Between December 1, 2019, and January 23, 2020, forty-six direct flights flew from Wuhan to Europe (Paris, London, Rome, and Moscow) and nineteen to the United States (either New York or San Francisco). The flights were largely full, according to VariFlight; unfortunately, January is a peak month for Chinese air travel” (p. 301).

“And, as in previous coronavirus epidemics, hospitals were themselves a major source of infection, though they lagged some way behind cruise ships, prisons, food-processing plants, and weddings in the ranking of superspreader locations. No institutions, however, were more fatal in the plague year 2020 than eldercare homes” (p. 302).

“The biggest problem facing the president of the United States today, and for years to come, is that many erstwhile American allies are seriously contemplating nonalignment in Cold War II. And without a sufficiency of allies, to say nothing of sympathetic neutrals, Washington may find this Second Cold War to be unwinnable” (p. 371).

Ferguson, Niall (2020). Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe. New York: Penguin Press.