This pioneering work offers a step by step account of how management systems can be built that can prevent hitherto "unpreventable" disasters. Recent disasters such as the 2004 tsunami continue to demonstrate Professor Allinson's thesis that valuing human lives is the core of ethical management. His unique comparison of the ideas of the power of Fate and High Technology, his penetrating analysis of the very concept of "accident", demonstrate how such concepts rule our lives. A wide-ranging investigation of court cases and government documents from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, and from places as diverse as the USA, UK and New Zealand provide ample supporting evidence for this thesis.

Professor Allinson weaves convincing arguments from original linguistic, literary and ethical analyses and shows how these arguments apply to highly detailed and well documented case studies

Zusammenfassung
Recent disasters such as the tsunami disaster continue to demonstrate Professor Allinson's thesis that valuing human lives is the core of ethical management. His unique comparison of the ideas of the power of Fate and High Technology, his penetrating analysis of the very concept of an "accident", demonstrate how concepts rule our lives.

Inhalt
Accidents, Tragedies and Disasters.- The Internal Relationship Between Ethics and Business.- The Buck Stops Here and it Stops Everywhere Else as Well.- Crisis Management and Disaster Prevention Management.- The Vasa Disaster.- The Titanic Disaster.- The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster.- Post-Challenger Investigations.- The Herald of Free Enterprise Disaster.- The King's Cross Underground Fire.- The Disaster on Mt. Erebus.- Moral Responsibility and Techno-Organization.