X-Events
The modern world is interconnected on a scale never before seen in the history of humankind. It’s a marvel of complexity, and therein lies the problem. As John Casti—a pioneer in complexity science and systems theory—explains, the more complex a thing is, the more susceptible it becomes to collapse. “The infrastructures required to maintain a postindustrial lifestyle—power, water, food, communication, transportation, health care, defense, finance—are so tightly intertwined,” he writes, “that when one system sneezes, the others can quickly get pneumonia.”
In X-Events, Casti shows how our world has become ripe for extreme, civilization-threatening events and gives us a tour of the possible calamities that could blast us back to the pre-industrial age. Focusing on human-generated X-events, he discusses:
• a world-wide crash of the Internet
• a massive power grid failure
• nuclear conflicts
• global pandemics
• a drying-up of our oil supplies
• the collapse of the world financial markets
• a robot uprising, and more.
Also showing how we can anticipate—and perhaps even mitigate—these events, X-Events is a riveting book. You won’t look at the world the same way again.
Hardcover Book : 336 pages
Publisher: William Morrow & Co, Inc. ( June 12, 2012 )
Item #: 13-569548
ISBN: 9780062088284
Product Dimensions: 6.0 x 9.0 inches
Product Weight: 18.0 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
X-Events 
June 25, 2012
Spoon fed a little bit of evolution and a little bit of global warming (too much of both for me). Some good reading, but that spin is there. I wouldn't have bought it had I known.
Reviewer: Wayne
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