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Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - And Why
It was 8.46 a.m. on 9/11 when Elia Zedeño, who had worked in the World Trade Center for twenty-one years, heard a booming explosion and felt the building lurch violently to the south. She grabbed her desk, taking her feet off the floor, and screamed, 'What's happening?'
How would you react to a disaster? Would you be paralysed with fear? Would you panic and lose control? Or might you suddenly discover hidden strengths in yourself?
In The Unthinkable, award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley investigates some of the most harrowing catastrophes in history in order to piece together exactly how we react in a crisis. Through compelling interviews with survivors and experts she uncovers our instinctive reactions, shows how primitive parts of our brains take over when we're put under pressure, and demonstrates that we can, in fact, train ourselves to do better.
We all have a 'disaster personality' that reveals itself at moments of crisis. In The Unthinkable you can become acquainted with yours.Who knows? One day, understanding how it works may save your life.
How would you react to a disaster? Would you be paralysed with fear? Would you panic and lose control? Or might you suddenly discover hidden strengths in yourself?
In The Unthinkable, award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley investigates some of the most harrowing catastrophes in history in order to piece together exactly how we react in a crisis. Through compelling interviews with survivors and experts she uncovers our instinctive reactions, shows how primitive parts of our brains take over when we're put under pressure, and demonstrates that we can, in fact, train ourselves to do better.
We all have a 'disaster personality' that reveals itself at moments of crisis. In The Unthinkable you can become acquainted with yours.Who knows? One day, understanding how it works may save your life.
272 pages, Unknown Binding
First published June 10, 2008
1141 people are currently reading
20620 people want to read
About the author
Amanda Ripley
8 books443 followersFrom the author's website:
Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist for The Atlantic and other magazines and a New York Times bestselling author. Her books include High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out, The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way, and The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—and Why. Ripley spent a decade writing about human behavior for Time magazine in New York, Washington, and Paris. Her stories helped Time win two National Magazine Awards.
Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist for The Atlantic and other magazines and a New York Times bestselling author. Her books include High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out, The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way, and The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—and Why. Ripley spent a decade writing about human behavior for Time magazine in New York, Washington, and Paris. Her stories helped Time win two National Magazine Awards.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,459 reviews
February 1, 2019
Incredible. A textbook, basically, on all things scary. And an extremely illuminating one at that.
Q:
For all these reasons, perhaps, heroes feel a nonnegotiable duty to help others when they can. “It’s something in your heart, your soul, and your emotions that gets a hold of you and says, I gotta do something,” Oliner says. This finding agrees with the results of other (albeit scant) research into heroism. People who perform heroic acts are very often those who are “helpers” in everyday life, be they firefighters or nurses or police officers.
Perhaps because of their training and experience, heroes also have confidence in their own abilities. In general, like almost all people who perform well under extreme stress, heroes believe they shape their own destinies. Psychologists call this an “internal locus of control.” I asked Roger Olian if he felt in control of what happens to him. “There’s no question in my mind. To a very large degree,” he said. “Even if I couldn’t control it, I would feel like I should.”
Bystanders, on the other hand, tend to feel buffeted by forces beyond their control. “They pay scant attention to other people’s problems. They will concentrate on their own need for survival,” Oliner says. And bystanders, it’s worth remembering, are what most of us are.
(C)
Q:
Our obedience to authority in a disaster can be an asset, if the people in charge understand it. For years, aviation safety experts could not understand why passengers did so little to save themselves in plane crashes. They would sit in their seats instead of going to an exit. Those who did get up had an infuriating tendency to reach for their carry-on baggage before leaving. Then, once they made it to the exit door, they would pause for a dangerous amount of time before jumping down the slide. And in plane crashes, remember, you usually have a matter of seconds, not minutes, to get out.
In a series of experiments, safety officials ran regular people through mock evacuations from planes. The trials weren’t nearly as stressful as real evacuations, of course, but it didn’t matter. People, especially women, hesitated for a surprisingly long time before jumping onto the slide. That pause slowed the evacuation for everyone. But there was a way to get people to move faster. If a flight attendant stood at the exit and screamed at people to jump, the pause all but disappeared, the researchers found. In fact, if flight attendants did not aggressively direct the evacuation, they might as well have not been there at all. A study by the Cranfield University Aviation Safety Centre found that people moved just as slowly for polite and calm flight attendants as they did when there were no flight attendants present.
(c)
Q:
Panic occurs if and only if three other conditions are present, Quarantelli concluded. First, people must feel that they may be trapped. Knowing they are definitely trapped is not the same thing. In fact, in submarine disasters, such as the horrific sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk in 2000, humans are not likely to panic. The crew knows there is no way out. At submarine depths, even if they were to swim out of the hatch, they would not survive.
But if people worry that they might be trapped, that is a trigger for panic—even in wide open spaces. “War refugees caught in the open by strafing planes can develop as acute a sense of potential entrapment as individuals in a building during an earthquake who see all exits becoming blocked by debris,” Quarantelli wrote.
Second, panic requires a sensation of great helplessness—which often grows from interaction with others. What starts as an individual sense of impotence escalates when people see their feelings reflected around them. One person caught in explosions in a factory explained it this way to Quarantelli: “I can truthfully say that when I heard the moaning and crying of the others, I did get quite panicky.” Perhaps the Blitz and the Three Mile Island accident, like most disasters, did not cause panic because people did not feel very helpless. They could take shelter or evacuate, after all. And following the Lake Wobegon effect, the psychological phenomenon named after Garrison Keillor’s above-average town, most people probably suspected that they would be among the lucky ones.
The final prerequisite to panic is a sense of profound isolation, Quarantelli found. Surrounded by others, all of whom feel utterly powerless, we realize we are exquisitely alone. We understand that we could be saved—but no one is going to do it. Panic is, in a way, what happens when human beings glimpse their own impending mortality—and know that it didn’t have to be so.
(c)
Q:
It was hard to hear or think with the constant thud of the water hitting our precarious plastic shelter. Every thirty seconds or so, when a spray of ice-cold water leaked through, my fellow survivors would erupt in shrieks. At that moment, I remembered once being told by a military researcher that very cold or very hot environments tend to degrade human performance very, very quickly. The effect tends to be geometric. Sitting there for just five minutes in the wet, stinking huddle, I felt suddenly exhausted. I knew I’d be out of there in time for dinner. I knew my life wasn’t even remotely in danger, and I did not feel afraid. But still, I felt surprisingly drained. My brain must have been working harder than I consciously realized. At that moment, the idea of quietly surrendering in a real disaster didn’t seem quite so unimaginable.
(c)
Q:
The Finer Distinctions
At an upscale restaurant in downtown Portland, Oregon, two women are eating together at a table by the window. In the middle of their conversation, a drunken homeless man stumbles up to the window, unzips his pants, and pulls his penis up to the table. After a short period of gasps and guffaws, the police are called. Officer Loren Christensen arrives at the scene and finds two extremes. One of the women, he says, is “laughing her head off.” The other is slumped on a bench in the lobby with someone fanning her.
In his twenty-five years as a police officer, Christensen noticed this kind of variance often—particularly among female victims of flashers. “One would laugh it off. Another would be enraged. Still another would be emotionally traumatized.” Christensen, who has retired from the police force and now works as an author and martial-arts instructor, has always had trouble discerning what makes one person react so differently from another—even in war, when he was a military policeman. “In Vietnam, I saw people psychologically impacted in the extreme who worked as cooks. Cooks! And I saw infantrymen who had seriously faced the dragon who appeared, at least on the surface, to be fine.”
Resilience is a precious skill. People who have it tend to also have three underlying advantages: a belief that they can influence life events; a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life’s turmoil; and a conviction that they can learn from both positive and negative experiences. These beliefs act as a sort of buffer, cushioning the blow of any given disaster. Dangers seem more manageable to these people, and they perform better as a result. “Trauma, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder,” says George Everly Jr., at the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness in Baltimore, Maryland.
This makes sense. A healthy, proactive worldview should logically lead to resilience. But it’s the kind of unsatisfying answer that begs another question. If this worldview leads to resilience, well, what leads to the worldview?
The answer is not what we might expect. Resilient people aren’t necessarily yoga-practicing Buddhists. One thing that they have in abundance is confidence. As we saw in the chapter on fear, confidence—that comes from realistic rehearsal or even laughter—soothes the more disruptive effects of extreme fear. A few recent studies have found that people who are unrealistically confident tend to fare spectacularly well in disasters. Psychologists call these people “self-enhancers,” but you and I would probably call them arrogant. These are people who think more highly of themselves than other people think of them. They tend to come off as annoying and self-absorbed. In a way, they might be better adapted to crises than they are to real life.
Less than a year after the civil war ended, George Bonanno at Columbia University interviewed seventy-eight Bosnia-Herzegovina citizens in Sarajevo. Each person in the study rated himself or herself when it came to psychological problems, interpersonal skills, health problems, and moodiness. Then each person was rated by his or her peers. A small group of people rated themselves significantly higher than others did. And these were the people found by mental health professionals to be better adjusted.
After 9/11, Bonanno found a similar pattern among survivors who were in or near the World Trade Center during the attacks. Those with high senses of self-worth rebounded relatively easily. They even had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their saliva. Their confidence was like a vaccine against life’s vicissitudes.
Several studies have found that people with higher IQs tend to fare better after a trauma. Resilient people may be smarter, in other words. Why would that be? Perhaps intelligence helps people think creatively, which might in turn lead to a greater sense of purpose and control. Or maybe the confidence that comes with a high IQ is what leads to the resilience to begin with.
The more important point is that everyone, regardless of IQ, can manufacture self-esteem through training and experience. That is what soldiers and police officers will tell you; that confidence comes from doing. As we saw in Chapter 3, the brain functions much better when it is familiar with a problem. We feel more in control because we are more in control. But in certain situations, like the one in which Shacham found himself as a rookie cop, sitting next to a violent criminal who had called his bluff, neither experience nor training could rescue him. He drew upon something else, something more fundamental.
(C)
Q:
For all these reasons, perhaps, heroes feel a nonnegotiable duty to help others when they can. “It’s something in your heart, your soul, and your emotions that gets a hold of you and says, I gotta do something,” Oliner says. This finding agrees with the results of other (albeit scant) research into heroism. People who perform heroic acts are very often those who are “helpers” in everyday life, be they firefighters or nurses or police officers.
Perhaps because of their training and experience, heroes also have confidence in their own abilities. In general, like almost all people who perform well under extreme stress, heroes believe they shape their own destinies. Psychologists call this an “internal locus of control.” I asked Roger Olian if he felt in control of what happens to him. “There’s no question in my mind. To a very large degree,” he said. “Even if I couldn’t control it, I would feel like I should.”
Bystanders, on the other hand, tend to feel buffeted by forces beyond their control. “They pay scant attention to other people’s problems. They will concentrate on their own need for survival,” Oliner says. And bystanders, it’s worth remembering, are what most of us are.
(C)
Q:
Our obedience to authority in a disaster can be an asset, if the people in charge understand it. For years, aviation safety experts could not understand why passengers did so little to save themselves in plane crashes. They would sit in their seats instead of going to an exit. Those who did get up had an infuriating tendency to reach for their carry-on baggage before leaving. Then, once they made it to the exit door, they would pause for a dangerous amount of time before jumping down the slide. And in plane crashes, remember, you usually have a matter of seconds, not minutes, to get out.
In a series of experiments, safety officials ran regular people through mock evacuations from planes. The trials weren’t nearly as stressful as real evacuations, of course, but it didn’t matter. People, especially women, hesitated for a surprisingly long time before jumping onto the slide. That pause slowed the evacuation for everyone. But there was a way to get people to move faster. If a flight attendant stood at the exit and screamed at people to jump, the pause all but disappeared, the researchers found. In fact, if flight attendants did not aggressively direct the evacuation, they might as well have not been there at all. A study by the Cranfield University Aviation Safety Centre found that people moved just as slowly for polite and calm flight attendants as they did when there were no flight attendants present.
(c)
Q:
Panic occurs if and only if three other conditions are present, Quarantelli concluded. First, people must feel that they may be trapped. Knowing they are definitely trapped is not the same thing. In fact, in submarine disasters, such as the horrific sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk in 2000, humans are not likely to panic. The crew knows there is no way out. At submarine depths, even if they were to swim out of the hatch, they would not survive.
But if people worry that they might be trapped, that is a trigger for panic—even in wide open spaces. “War refugees caught in the open by strafing planes can develop as acute a sense of potential entrapment as individuals in a building during an earthquake who see all exits becoming blocked by debris,” Quarantelli wrote.
Second, panic requires a sensation of great helplessness—which often grows from interaction with others. What starts as an individual sense of impotence escalates when people see their feelings reflected around them. One person caught in explosions in a factory explained it this way to Quarantelli: “I can truthfully say that when I heard the moaning and crying of the others, I did get quite panicky.” Perhaps the Blitz and the Three Mile Island accident, like most disasters, did not cause panic because people did not feel very helpless. They could take shelter or evacuate, after all. And following the Lake Wobegon effect, the psychological phenomenon named after Garrison Keillor’s above-average town, most people probably suspected that they would be among the lucky ones.
The final prerequisite to panic is a sense of profound isolation, Quarantelli found. Surrounded by others, all of whom feel utterly powerless, we realize we are exquisitely alone. We understand that we could be saved—but no one is going to do it. Panic is, in a way, what happens when human beings glimpse their own impending mortality—and know that it didn’t have to be so.
(c)
Q:
It was hard to hear or think with the constant thud of the water hitting our precarious plastic shelter. Every thirty seconds or so, when a spray of ice-cold water leaked through, my fellow survivors would erupt in shrieks. At that moment, I remembered once being told by a military researcher that very cold or very hot environments tend to degrade human performance very, very quickly. The effect tends to be geometric. Sitting there for just five minutes in the wet, stinking huddle, I felt suddenly exhausted. I knew I’d be out of there in time for dinner. I knew my life wasn’t even remotely in danger, and I did not feel afraid. But still, I felt surprisingly drained. My brain must have been working harder than I consciously realized. At that moment, the idea of quietly surrendering in a real disaster didn’t seem quite so unimaginable.
(c)
Q:
The Finer Distinctions
At an upscale restaurant in downtown Portland, Oregon, two women are eating together at a table by the window. In the middle of their conversation, a drunken homeless man stumbles up to the window, unzips his pants, and pulls his penis up to the table. After a short period of gasps and guffaws, the police are called. Officer Loren Christensen arrives at the scene and finds two extremes. One of the women, he says, is “laughing her head off.” The other is slumped on a bench in the lobby with someone fanning her.
In his twenty-five years as a police officer, Christensen noticed this kind of variance often—particularly among female victims of flashers. “One would laugh it off. Another would be enraged. Still another would be emotionally traumatized.” Christensen, who has retired from the police force and now works as an author and martial-arts instructor, has always had trouble discerning what makes one person react so differently from another—even in war, when he was a military policeman. “In Vietnam, I saw people psychologically impacted in the extreme who worked as cooks. Cooks! And I saw infantrymen who had seriously faced the dragon who appeared, at least on the surface, to be fine.”
Resilience is a precious skill. People who have it tend to also have three underlying advantages: a belief that they can influence life events; a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life’s turmoil; and a conviction that they can learn from both positive and negative experiences. These beliefs act as a sort of buffer, cushioning the blow of any given disaster. Dangers seem more manageable to these people, and they perform better as a result. “Trauma, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder,” says George Everly Jr., at the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness in Baltimore, Maryland.
This makes sense. A healthy, proactive worldview should logically lead to resilience. But it’s the kind of unsatisfying answer that begs another question. If this worldview leads to resilience, well, what leads to the worldview?
The answer is not what we might expect. Resilient people aren’t necessarily yoga-practicing Buddhists. One thing that they have in abundance is confidence. As we saw in the chapter on fear, confidence—that comes from realistic rehearsal or even laughter—soothes the more disruptive effects of extreme fear. A few recent studies have found that people who are unrealistically confident tend to fare spectacularly well in disasters. Psychologists call these people “self-enhancers,” but you and I would probably call them arrogant. These are people who think more highly of themselves than other people think of them. They tend to come off as annoying and self-absorbed. In a way, they might be better adapted to crises than they are to real life.
Less than a year after the civil war ended, George Bonanno at Columbia University interviewed seventy-eight Bosnia-Herzegovina citizens in Sarajevo. Each person in the study rated himself or herself when it came to psychological problems, interpersonal skills, health problems, and moodiness. Then each person was rated by his or her peers. A small group of people rated themselves significantly higher than others did. And these were the people found by mental health professionals to be better adjusted.
After 9/11, Bonanno found a similar pattern among survivors who were in or near the World Trade Center during the attacks. Those with high senses of self-worth rebounded relatively easily. They even had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their saliva. Their confidence was like a vaccine against life’s vicissitudes.
Several studies have found that people with higher IQs tend to fare better after a trauma. Resilient people may be smarter, in other words. Why would that be? Perhaps intelligence helps people think creatively, which might in turn lead to a greater sense of purpose and control. Or maybe the confidence that comes with a high IQ is what leads to the resilience to begin with.
The more important point is that everyone, regardless of IQ, can manufacture self-esteem through training and experience. That is what soldiers and police officers will tell you; that confidence comes from doing. As we saw in Chapter 3, the brain functions much better when it is familiar with a problem. We feel more in control because we are more in control. But in certain situations, like the one in which Shacham found himself as a rookie cop, sitting next to a violent criminal who had called his bluff, neither experience nor training could rescue him. He drew upon something else, something more fundamental.
(C)
May 15, 2021
Easy read on history of disaster planning. Good gut check on understanding risk and how to respond. Starts with the Halifax explosion in 1917 and explores 9/11, 1993 bombing, sewer explosions of Guadalajara, and Katrina. Some of the interesting items. 1) Initial response in a disaster is always by neighbors or self rescue, so be prepared 2) Understand risk of activities – don’t watch the news (references Taleb above), so Heart Attack, Cancer, Stroke, Car accident. A study showed an additional 2000 road deaths due to the decrease in air travel after 9/11. So, based on that we should all start our day with 20 minutes of meditation and a bowl of Oatmeal. 3) Very good information on fear. During a crisis, more people go catatonic than panic. Use profanity and scream to get people to move. For an individual, military training helps (make a plan, execute the plan) or just quickly think about why you need to live. Also, during a crisis most people lose track of time or can have tunnel vision or total vision loss. Hero’s tend to be unmarried males without children (the rest of us need to save our necks for our progeny). Very interesting story on Rick Rescorla, Director of Security for Morgan Stanley in the World Trade Center. After the fiasco of the 1993 bombing, he gave up on the port authority for disaster planning. He had actual, annual fire drills unlike the rest of the world trade center. He was ridiculed by the organization (this was a bunch of rich investment bankers). But 8 years later, he was vindicated when he got out 2800 employees of Morgan Stanley alive. Only 14 died which included himself and 4 of his guards. Take aways – know the relative risk of disasters in your area; practice fire drills; follow tornado, flood, and hurricane warnings; count the seats to an exit in a plane; take the stairs out of a hotel after checking in; take defensive driving seriously; Meditate (not just for heart health, but to calm in a disaster).
December 19, 2022
Storytelling is essential to survival. It’s what turns preparation into ritual and victims into saviors.
I had this review 95% written and my computer died because its battery is crap. And now it's gone.
It was a bomb review. Just pretend you read it and it was REALLY good.
Unfortunately, you are left with the half-assed version of my review, because I've had an extremely rough week; I basically have the mental energy of a toad right now.
Veering away from the disaster that is my life, let's talk about The Unthinkable.
“Life becomes like molten metal,” he wrote. “Old customs crumble, and instability rules.”
For a book about panic, 9/11, hurricanes, and school shootings, The Unthinkable is infused with a comforting sense of hope. It's absolutely horrifying to hear the tales of a woman who stumbled down the stairs of the World Trade Center, or a teenager who lived through the Virginia Tech violence. But these tragic stories have a silver lining - humanity is better, kinder, and smarter than you'd ever think. Even in times of disaster, most people choose to be good. To do good.
And that's the first thing I want to commend Amanda Ripley on. She wrote a well-researched, thorough, optimistic book about disasters and the ways human nature moves though them. It's too easy to say it won't happen to me. Not this plane, not this storm. You've always been safe, so your brain sees no reason to think otherwise.
There's a lot of talk about our instinctual reactions in the face of danger. Why do we perform acts of heroism? How do crowds of people suddenly turn deadly? What physical reactions do our bodies go through when faced with unimaginable fear. How do we keep from freezing and move past denial ?
How are you most likely to die? Think for a moment: Given your own profile, what do you really think is most likely to kill you?
It's more a survival mentality type of story, but there's a bit of practical advice sprinkled throughout. Check your smoke detectors. Pay attention to emergency exit locations. Never try to drive through a flooded road. And finally, know what disasters you could personally face, and mentally rehearse for what you will do. For example, I live right on the border of tornado alley, as well as being close to a major fault line. So it makes much more sense for me to plan for either of those options as opposed to a tsunami.
I ain't afraid of no tsunami.
When people believe that survival is negotiable, they can be wonderfully creative. All it takes is the audacity to imagine that our behavior matters.
The Unthinkable is a remarkable work of nonfiction, realistic without pessimism, and full of personal, eye opening stories of disaster. At it's core, it is a book that believes in humanity as a group and as individuals. No only CAN we survive, we will.
I had this review 95% written and my computer died because its battery is crap. And now it's gone.
It was a bomb review. Just pretend you read it and it was REALLY good.
Unfortunately, you are left with the half-assed version of my review, because I've had an extremely rough week; I basically have the mental energy of a toad right now.
Veering away from the disaster that is my life, let's talk about The Unthinkable.
“Life becomes like molten metal,” he wrote. “Old customs crumble, and instability rules.”
For a book about panic, 9/11, hurricanes, and school shootings, The Unthinkable is infused with a comforting sense of hope. It's absolutely horrifying to hear the tales of a woman who stumbled down the stairs of the World Trade Center, or a teenager who lived through the Virginia Tech violence. But these tragic stories have a silver lining - humanity is better, kinder, and smarter than you'd ever think. Even in times of disaster, most people choose to be good. To do good.
And that's the first thing I want to commend Amanda Ripley on. She wrote a well-researched, thorough, optimistic book about disasters and the ways human nature moves though them. It's too easy to say it won't happen to me. Not this plane, not this storm. You've always been safe, so your brain sees no reason to think otherwise.
There's a lot of talk about our instinctual reactions in the face of danger. Why do we perform acts of heroism? How do crowds of people suddenly turn deadly? What physical reactions do our bodies go through when faced with unimaginable fear. How do we keep from freezing and move past denial ?
How are you most likely to die? Think for a moment: Given your own profile, what do you really think is most likely to kill you?
It's more a survival mentality type of story, but there's a bit of practical advice sprinkled throughout. Check your smoke detectors. Pay attention to emergency exit locations. Never try to drive through a flooded road. And finally, know what disasters you could personally face, and mentally rehearse for what you will do. For example, I live right on the border of tornado alley, as well as being close to a major fault line. So it makes much more sense for me to plan for either of those options as opposed to a tsunami.
I ain't afraid of no tsunami.
When people believe that survival is negotiable, they can be wonderfully creative. All it takes is the audacity to imagine that our behavior matters.
The Unthinkable is a remarkable work of nonfiction, realistic without pessimism, and full of personal, eye opening stories of disaster. At it's core, it is a book that believes in humanity as a group and as individuals. No only CAN we survive, we will.
June 19, 2008
Everyone should read this book! Besides being filled with utterly fascinating tales of how different people react during disasters (did you know panic is actually an extremely rare response?) it gives very helpful ideas/plans for how to prepare yourself mentally for being involved in one. This is the type of book you're always reading bits aloud to whoever happens to be in the room; I cannot stress how terrific and interesting it is...just knowing the most common reasons people die in disasters could save you, because these reasons are not at all what you're always believed!
September 26, 2019
A couple months ago, my place of employment sent me to a Readiness Conference. I fan-girled out listening to Dr. Kevin Menes talk about his experience in the emergency department responding to the Las Vegas shooting aftermath. Seriously. The guy deserves a medal and is a walking superhero in health care. The next session was on responding to shooters in the work force.
The thing that both Dr. Menes and the expert shooter response trainers continued to reiterate is something I completely agree with. But it took my belief from a personal anecdote to something with concrete data: when tragedy strikes, YOU are the first responder. Not 911. So what are you doing to be ready? What makes you confident you are as ready as you can be?
This book was referenced several times, and I immediately put it on my short list to read. It's now on my short list to buy.
Phenomenal book. There's still a long way to go, and I've had a method of self-defense for years, but this takes it to a whole new level. When I sit in a restaurant now, I know the exits. When I'm going around corners, I look for the hallway mirrors. And a million other small awareness things.
The book breaks down behavioral response to disaster, propensity for certain behaviors during disaster, and pushes the reader towards readiness. Not in order to instill anxiety in the ready, but to instill confidence because we know what the heck we would do IF. We've wrestled those demons and we're at peace with a plan.
Beyond fascinating and practical. Highly recommend.
I'd rate this a PG-13 for heavy adult material, swearing, and scenes of death and destruction.
The thing that both Dr. Menes and the expert shooter response trainers continued to reiterate is something I completely agree with. But it took my belief from a personal anecdote to something with concrete data: when tragedy strikes, YOU are the first responder. Not 911. So what are you doing to be ready? What makes you confident you are as ready as you can be?
This book was referenced several times, and I immediately put it on my short list to read. It's now on my short list to buy.
Phenomenal book. There's still a long way to go, and I've had a method of self-defense for years, but this takes it to a whole new level. When I sit in a restaurant now, I know the exits. When I'm going around corners, I look for the hallway mirrors. And a million other small awareness things.
The book breaks down behavioral response to disaster, propensity for certain behaviors during disaster, and pushes the reader towards readiness. Not in order to instill anxiety in the ready, but to instill confidence because we know what the heck we would do IF. We've wrestled those demons and we're at peace with a plan.
Beyond fascinating and practical. Highly recommend.
I'd rate this a PG-13 for heavy adult material, swearing, and scenes of death and destruction.
June 7, 2013
Kinda disappointed to be honest. I mean, it is an engaging read and the her writing style is very readable, which is why I'm so frustrated with how mediocre the actual content was. I think my expectations were misled by the subtitle on the cover - "Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why". From the subtitle I was expecting an eye-opening, thought-provoking book based on scientific studies and statistical research similar to Freakonomics and The Tipping Point etc, but what we got were psychological profiles of the different human responses to disaster. Which is interesting enough as it is, but Ripley doesn't quite tell us why people with these particular traits survive, or at least, she doesn't really link her arguments and points well, so each section feels very disjointed and muddled and the point is lost in there somewhere.
April 27, 2024
I wish I could give this book six stars. It's fascinating and will save lives.
April 6, 2020
An exceptional book about who survives and who doesn't in a disaster, Amanda Ripley writes:
"[W]e flirt shamelessly with risk today, constructing city skylines in hurricane alleys and neighborhoods on top of fault lines. Largely because of where we live, disasters have become more frequent and more expensive. But as we build ever more impressive buildings and airplanes, we do less and less to build better survivors. How did we get this way? The more I learned, the more I wondered how much of our survival behaviors—and misbehaviors—could be explained by evolution. After all, we evolved to escape predators, not buildings that reach a quarter mile into the sky. Has technology simply outpaced our survival mechanisms? But there are two kinds of evolution: the genetic kind and the cultural kind. Both shape our behavior, and the cultural kind has gotten a lot faster. We now have many ways to create “instincts”: we can learn to do better or worse. We can pass on traditions about how to deal with modern risks, just as we pass on language."
"[W]e flirt shamelessly with risk today, constructing city skylines in hurricane alleys and neighborhoods on top of fault lines. Largely because of where we live, disasters have become more frequent and more expensive. But as we build ever more impressive buildings and airplanes, we do less and less to build better survivors. How did we get this way? The more I learned, the more I wondered how much of our survival behaviors—and misbehaviors—could be explained by evolution. After all, we evolved to escape predators, not buildings that reach a quarter mile into the sky. Has technology simply outpaced our survival mechanisms? But there are two kinds of evolution: the genetic kind and the cultural kind. Both shape our behavior, and the cultural kind has gotten a lot faster. We now have many ways to create “instincts”: we can learn to do better or worse. We can pass on traditions about how to deal with modern risks, just as we pass on language."
April 4, 2016
This book tells you many useful things about survival, human's mind and disasters, and I really enjoy the author's sense of humor as well. Informative, educational and effectively written. We need more non-fictional books like this.
PS: I really like how scientists are having all the fun when they run their experiments: (1) getting people to jump from building (with safety neat beneath) and (2) getting people to swim through a mazelike swimming pool, so they can analyze how human's brain would work at the state of crisis.
PS: I really like how scientists are having all the fun when they run their experiments: (1) getting people to jump from building (with safety neat beneath) and (2) getting people to swim through a mazelike swimming pool, so they can analyze how human's brain would work at the state of crisis.
October 26, 2023
I hate to fly, but if I want to see my oldest son who lives 1700 miles away, I pretty much have to. When I was four months pregnant with this son, I was on a flight that had a fire in the cabin shortly after takeoff, so the pilot told us we needed to assume the crash position, return to the airport, land on a runway surrounded by fire trucks, and exit using the wing evacuation slides. Everything turned out fine, but it was pretty darn scary at the time. I've been terrified to fly ever since, asking my doctor for four Xanax four times a year when I had to fly. She has become less willing to prescribe them, so now I just have a drink before boarding.
When I saw this book at the library, even the title made my heart pound, but I decided to check it out and face my fear. Instead of being scary, I found this book to be interesting, informative, empowering, and a positive look at how people react when faced with a disaster. I hope I never have to learn what my "disaster personality" (how you respond in a crisis) would be if I was in the middle of a real disaster, but this book has given me a lot to think about, and at least listen to the safety presentation before takeoff, identify the plane exits as instructed, and learn where the fire exits are when I check into a hotel. I'm still afraid to fly, but after reading The Unthinkable, I can recognize that as an emotional response, and move beyond it by planning, preparation, practicing, and executing my plan. It's a fine line between telling yourself that the chances of a disaster happening to you or a loved one are slim and expecting disasters around every corner, but The Unthinkable provides an educational, logical, and positive approach to risk, fear, and disaster planning.
When I saw this book at the library, even the title made my heart pound, but I decided to check it out and face my fear. Instead of being scary, I found this book to be interesting, informative, empowering, and a positive look at how people react when faced with a disaster. I hope I never have to learn what my "disaster personality" (how you respond in a crisis) would be if I was in the middle of a real disaster, but this book has given me a lot to think about, and at least listen to the safety presentation before takeoff, identify the plane exits as instructed, and learn where the fire exits are when I check into a hotel. I'm still afraid to fly, but after reading The Unthinkable, I can recognize that as an emotional response, and move beyond it by planning, preparation, practicing, and executing my plan. It's a fine line between telling yourself that the chances of a disaster happening to you or a loved one are slim and expecting disasters around every corner, but The Unthinkable provides an educational, logical, and positive approach to risk, fear, and disaster planning.
August 29, 2010
A successful journalist, Ripley can really smith words.This piece reads fast and easily. Also, without a doubt she introduces some interesting concepts about behavior of human beings in seriously threatening situations. I just wish that her conclusions were drawn more from scientific data and less from anecdotes and memories of victims.
February 24, 2024
A book guaranteed to make you think. The author, Amanda Ripley, studies disasters through history and the human response to it. Ripley gives the survivors' voice and allows their experiences to show faults and strengths. She has some startling findings and the science to back it up. She covers the 09/11 World Trade Center disaster, the 2004 Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, numerous airplane accidents, and even crowd stampedes at the Hajj in Mecca. She has lots of anecdotes about various people's responses to the situations they found themselves in, and how they reacted, and why.
This book was very enlightening to me. I had heard and seen pictures of disasters, for example, people clustered around doors or entryways, but I had never heard of people utterly freezing up and becoming totally immobile in the face of fear. This was frightening to me and something I will have to consider. I think this is a book everyone should consider reading. Author Amanda Ripley has some interesting tales and several good points that people need to hear before the next big disaster.
This book was very enlightening to me. I had heard and seen pictures of disasters, for example, people clustered around doors or entryways, but I had never heard of people utterly freezing up and becoming totally immobile in the face of fear. This was frightening to me and something I will have to consider. I think this is a book everyone should consider reading. Author Amanda Ripley has some interesting tales and several good points that people need to hear before the next big disaster.
September 27, 2016
Uma boa leitura sobre comportamento humano e desastres. Como nos acostumamos com saídas de incêndio, alarmes e outras coisas durante a rotina, de maneira que são esquecidos durante um desastre. O que leva as pessoas a negarem o perigo e as etapas entre reconhecer e aceitar uma situação perigosa, com mais conteúdo sobre cognição e a pesquisa de Thinking, Fast and Slow (que vejo cada vez mais em todo tipo de livro). E uma parte sobre como as pessoas reagem ao desastre, seja paralisando ou agindo como heróis. Cobre muito bem ao que se propõe.
May 13, 2025
In her 2008 book The Unthinkable, journalist Amanda Ripley investigates what human behavior in the face of traumatic events, particularly natural disasters (fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes) and man-made disasters (shipwrecks, plane crashes, terrorist attacks, school shootings, hostage situations, etc.). Specifically, she explores why some people have better survival instincts and behaviors than others - which she finds to be a mix of uncontrollable factors (genetics and personality traits) and controllable ones (mental and physical preparation). She profiles particularly notable people who survived or died helping others (or failing to help themselves) in many disasters prior to 2008, including 9/11 (particularly the foresight and heroism of Morgan Stanley security director Rick Rescorla), Hurricane Katrina, the 1977 Beverly Hills Supper Club fire, and Air Florida Flight 90's crash into the frozen Potomac in January 1982.
I found this book insightful and very interesting, with largely original (at least to me) content.
Further reading: disaster preparedness in the 21st century
The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us and What We Can Do about Them by Lucy Jones
Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago by Eric Klinenberg
The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity by Amy Webb
My statistics:
Book 147 for 2025
Book 2073 cumulatively
I found this book insightful and very interesting, with largely original (at least to me) content.
Further reading: disaster preparedness in the 21st century
The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us and What We Can Do about Them by Lucy Jones
Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago by Eric Klinenberg
The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity by Amy Webb
My statistics:
Book 147 for 2025
Book 2073 cumulatively
November 1, 2024
4✨
The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why is a nonfiction book by Amanda Ripley that explores the human factor in different life and death situations through lens of things like psychology, physiology, and more.
It deals with tragedies both natural and human-caused, and uses these events to analyze human behavior and human interaction. We read accounts of first-hand survivors, as well as more literature-review style research writing.
Using specific events and tying them to specific actions of individuals during them made this a deep, and sometimes dark, but overall interesting read. I would’ve loved to have seen more of this, more specific event examples and survivor stories, then a little analysis, versus more leaning on qualitative research.
The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why is a nonfiction book by Amanda Ripley that explores the human factor in different life and death situations through lens of things like psychology, physiology, and more.
It deals with tragedies both natural and human-caused, and uses these events to analyze human behavior and human interaction. We read accounts of first-hand survivors, as well as more literature-review style research writing.
Using specific events and tying them to specific actions of individuals during them made this a deep, and sometimes dark, but overall interesting read. I would’ve loved to have seen more of this, more specific event examples and survivor stories, then a little analysis, versus more leaning on qualitative research.
February 7, 2016
I am, admittedly, very interested in disasters and their aftermath. I have been ever since I was a girl - I remember reading about The Titanic with fascination. I was obsessed with Pompeii for a while. Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, all of it. Maybe it's because when I was young my town flooded for several days, our basement filling with water and my dad away all day filling sandbags as the streets flowed like a river. I don't know. But I've always had a healthy fear of and fascination with what happens when things go wrong.
When a friend recommended this book to me, I checked it out from the library right away and I'm glad I did. Ripley's writing style is both informative - citing studies and interviewing researchers in the field of human stress and behavior - as well as casual in tone. She interviews disaster survivors from 9-11, fires, active shooting situations and plane crashes, giving insight into the different types of reactions that one can have when confronted with an extremely stressful situation. We learn about the three phases of a human's disaster response and how to help ourselves do a little better to ensure that we are more likely to be safe.
I found it fascinating - I wanted to bring up some of the ideas with people I talk to as well as apply some of her thoughts into my own life. It's straightforward and frightening sometimes but isn't trying to be scary - it's trying to inform and change behavior. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to feel more confident about how to keep themselves safe in those once-in-a-lifetime situations.
When a friend recommended this book to me, I checked it out from the library right away and I'm glad I did. Ripley's writing style is both informative - citing studies and interviewing researchers in the field of human stress and behavior - as well as casual in tone. She interviews disaster survivors from 9-11, fires, active shooting situations and plane crashes, giving insight into the different types of reactions that one can have when confronted with an extremely stressful situation. We learn about the three phases of a human's disaster response and how to help ourselves do a little better to ensure that we are more likely to be safe.
I found it fascinating - I wanted to bring up some of the ideas with people I talk to as well as apply some of her thoughts into my own life. It's straightforward and frightening sometimes but isn't trying to be scary - it's trying to inform and change behavior. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to feel more confident about how to keep themselves safe in those once-in-a-lifetime situations.
December 7, 2021
Probably 3.5 stars. I enjoyed the anecdotal stories and background, but perhaps I was disappointed at the lack of a clear "do this, not that" summation. Much of this is common sense, and we've heard it before.
The most important thing I got out of the book, is that it is an extremely common reaction to "freeze" when faced with a sudden/unexpected disaster, and it is common among all animals. Ripley makes a convincing case that it is an evolutionary adaption, and I think she is correct. Humans will look to see what others are doing when disaster strikes and will tend to seek consensus. This leads to "milling" behavior before people start taking action.
Short version: Read the emergency instructions and know where the emergency exits are on your flight.
The most important thing I got out of the book, is that it is an extremely common reaction to "freeze" when faced with a sudden/unexpected disaster, and it is common among all animals. Ripley makes a convincing case that it is an evolutionary adaption, and I think she is correct. Humans will look to see what others are doing when disaster strikes and will tend to seek consensus. This leads to "milling" behavior before people start taking action.
Short version: Read the emergency instructions and know where the emergency exits are on your flight.
April 3, 2016
This book was an amazing experience. I feel strengthened and prepared for any disaster that comes my way....well almost any disaster. This book has a great mix of psychology, disaster scenarios, personal stories, and scientific research. It makes me look at things in a new light. And it makes me want to be an emergency prepared nerd. Next time I go to a movie theater or get on a plane, I know I'll be checking for the emergency exits.
March 4, 2025
Let me start by saying this book would not be everyone's cup of tea. It is about something many of us take for granted. It is about escape and evacuation in the face of an emergency and about how to plan for these events. The author examines numerous cases from around the world. It SHOULD be something everyone should read and understand. It is one of the things I have spent the last 33 years teaching people.
Great Job! Highly recommended.
Great Job! Highly recommended.
August 30, 2025
This book was soooooooooooo interesting!!! HIGHLY recommend
September 25, 2024
This would’ve been a 4 star book if not for some problematic elements.
First, the good points. This was a well written and entertaining read. Other comments point out it was a little bloated and didn’t offer anything practical, true. But for what it was, stories about people who survive disasters and what psychological or social factors influence their behaviors, was very interesting.
The conclusion was decent though I would’ve liked more advice other than just “breathe” and practice fire drills though.
The new parts about trust were fascinating but failed to follow through.
Now the problematic bits. The people the author chose to interview, whose actions she praises or at least doesn’t challenge or critics is telling. She praises cops for turning off their brains and relying on instinct. Sure that probably DOES improve their survival but kills so many others. She pities a man who literally admitted to war crimes and empathizes for the trauma HE went through. And any mention of Israel was calculated saying things like “in Palestinian controlled West Bank”, do you mean Palestine? I held my breathe expecting her to justify genocide as a valid “survival” response but luckily she stopped short.
There were elements of this book that I might have been annoyed by and brushed off being written 15ish years ago. But this book just went through edits.
Really mixed feelings and not sure how likely I’d be to recommend it. I look forward to exploring the bibliography though!
First, the good points. This was a well written and entertaining read. Other comments point out it was a little bloated and didn’t offer anything practical, true. But for what it was, stories about people who survive disasters and what psychological or social factors influence their behaviors, was very interesting.
The conclusion was decent though I would’ve liked more advice other than just “breathe” and practice fire drills though.
The new parts about trust were fascinating but failed to follow through.
Now the problematic bits. The people the author chose to interview, whose actions she praises or at least doesn’t challenge or critics is telling. She praises cops for turning off their brains and relying on instinct. Sure that probably DOES improve their survival but kills so many others. She pities a man who literally admitted to war crimes and empathizes for the trauma HE went through. And any mention of Israel was calculated saying things like “in Palestinian controlled West Bank”, do you mean Palestine? I held my breathe expecting her to justify genocide as a valid “survival” response but luckily she stopped short.
There were elements of this book that I might have been annoyed by and brushed off being written 15ish years ago. But this book just went through edits.
Really mixed feelings and not sure how likely I’d be to recommend it. I look forward to exploring the bibliography though!
December 13, 2021
If you're new to survival nonfiction, please start with this book! It's a great introduction. The author interviews survivors of disasters and analyzes why they survived while others didn't. How does the human brain react to a sudden catastrophe? The Unthinkable is an engaging, readable book that will (hopefully) make you aware of how your brain might sabotage you in an emergency. (Don't you dare grab your luggage from the overhead bin if your plane is on fire. People die from smoke inhalation because other people won't leave their luggage alone. You need to fight your brain's programming: Let the stuff burn; don't let the humans burn!)
If you've read a bunch of books about survival, then there isn't a ton of new information in this one. The author kept referencing other survival books, and I kept saying, "I've read that. And that. And that." It is an excellent starting point, though. Well-researched and easy to understand.
If you've read a bunch of books about survival, then there isn't a ton of new information in this one. The author kept referencing other survival books, and I kept saying, "I've read that. And that. And that." It is an excellent starting point, though. Well-researched and easy to understand.
January 7, 2024
Überleben. Die Autorin hat sich alle Statistiken zu diesem Thema angeschaut und sich damit beschäftigt, was das Überleben beeinflusst. Gibt es geschlechterspezifische Merkmale? Gibt es individuell bezogene Merkmale wie flight oder fight Mechanismen? Kann sogar die Herkunft eine Rolle spielen? Dabei untersucht sie insbesondere weltbekannte Katastrophen, von 9/11 bis Flugzeugabstürze oder Brände. Was steigert die Überlebenschance?
Ein sehr spannendes Buch.
Ein sehr spannendes Buch.
October 24, 2014
The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why by Amanda Ripley
“The Unthinkable” is a captivating book that looks at what happens in the midst of disaster; it’s about the process of survival. Award-winning investigative journalist, Amanda Ripley combines a fascinating topic and engaging writing to produce a real gem. This enthralling 290-page book is broken out cleverly in three parts: 1. Denial, 2. Deliberation, and 3. The Decisive Moment.
Positives:
1. High-quality book. It’s well-researched and well-written.
2. A fascinating topic that captures what goes on in the minds of those in the midst of a disaster.
3. It reads like an exciting action plot complemented nicely by sound science research.
4. I really liked Ripley’s approach. The book is structured cleverly to match the three phases of the survival arc: denial, deliberation and decisiveness. It flows beautifully and an excellent use of flashbacks to tease the readers to satisfactory insights. Fantastic!
5. One of the few books that in fact may help you survive a disaster. I loved the overall tone of the book; you don’t get a sense of dire but one of purpose and better understanding of why people react the way they do.
6. Every chapter highlights a disaster and proceeds to introduce the people involved and their state of minds as the disaster develops. “We worry about horrible things happening to us, but we don’t know much about what it actually feels like. I wondered what they had learned.”
7. This book succeeds because: Ripley has endless curiosity for the topic, conviction, applies sound logic backed by good science research, and great storytelling. In the author’s notes she discloses her sound methodology.
8. Great use of sound research. “Laughter—or silence—is a classic manifestation of denial, as is delay.”
9. Many facts shared throughout the book, “The fires caused by the 9/11 attacks were the deadliest in American history, killing 2,666 people.”
10. A very interesting look at risks and unintended consequences. “But something terrible happened in the name of common sense. In the two years after 9/11, an estimated 2,302 additional people were likely killed because they drove instead of flew, according to a 2006 study of road accidents in America by three Cornell University professors.”
11. Practical advice. “Warnings need to tell people what to do. Since people aren’t sure what action they should take in response to an Orange Alert for terrorism, the color codes are unsatisfying—like someone clinking a glass to give a toast and then standing there in silence.”
12. Great job of describing what happens to us during disasters, the physiology of fear. “This curious sense of aloofness, called ‘dissociation,’ can feel subtle. In a study of 115 police officers involved in serious shootings, 90 percent reported having some kind of dissociative symptom—from numbing to a loss of awareness to memory problems. At its most extreme, dissociation can take the form of an out-of-body experience.” Great stuff!
13. Understanding our brains. “The brain literally changes in structure and function throughout our lives, depending on what we do.”
14. Great stories throughout the book. The Dominican Republic embassy hostage situation in Columbia was fascinating because it was told from the perspective of the hostage and the hostage takers.
15. A look at resilience. “Resilience is a precious skill. People who have it tend to also have three underlying advantages: a belief that they can influence life events; a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life’s turmoil; and a conviction that they can learn from both positive and negative experiences. These beliefs act as a sort of buffer, cushioning the blow of any given disaster.”
16. The role groupthink plays during disasters. “Groupthink, then, is the adaptive strategy of prioritizing group harmony. Dissent is uncomfortable for the group because it can be dangerous to the individual. Sometimes, when we appear to value the group ahead of our own skin, we are actually doing something else altogether.”
17. An excellent chapter on panic exemplified by a stampede. The three conditions of panic.
18. A chapter that my reveal to you what you would do in a disaster. “Many go on to experience extreme remorse because they think they simply surrendered to their attacker, Gallup has found. “They don’t realize that what they did may have been a very adaptive reaction.” Paralysis can also make prosecution of the rapist much more difficult, since the lack of struggle may look a lot like consent.”
19. Compelling arguments that resonate. “I told him that our behavior is almost always a product of our genetics and our experience.”
20. So what makes a hero, a rescuer? “Rescuers tended to have had healthier and closer relationships with their parents. They were also more likely to have had friends of different religions and classes. Their most important quality seemed to be empathy.”
21. Notes and formal bibliography provided.
Negatives:
1. Very little to criticize here but perhaps a lack of visual material such as charts, timetables or graphs may have added even more value to this fantastic book.
2. I’m being nitpicky but a where are they now appendix would have been icing on the cake. Ripley does such a great job of describing the people involved in these disasters that we as readers care about their well-being. I’m sure many readers would like to know how they are doing today. In many instances it is in fact part of the narrative as she describes them being interviewed and such.
In summary, as an avid reader of non-fiction you never know when you are going to find a gem that strikes all the right notes and this is such a book. It combines a fascinating topic such as what happens to people in the midst of disasters with scientific insights of why that is. It’s really a book on the science of how people react to disasters. Captivating! I highly recommend it!
Further recommendations: “The Smartest Kid in the World” by the same author, “Deep Survival” by Laurence Gonzales, “Survivor Personality” by Al Siebert, “Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger” by Jeff Wise, “Surviving the Extremes” by Kenneth Kamler, “Supersurvivors” by David B. Feldman, “Subliminal” by Leonard Mlodinow, “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, “The Tell-Tale Brain” by V.S. Ramachandran, and “Incognito” by David Eagleman.
“The Unthinkable” is a captivating book that looks at what happens in the midst of disaster; it’s about the process of survival. Award-winning investigative journalist, Amanda Ripley combines a fascinating topic and engaging writing to produce a real gem. This enthralling 290-page book is broken out cleverly in three parts: 1. Denial, 2. Deliberation, and 3. The Decisive Moment.
Positives:
1. High-quality book. It’s well-researched and well-written.
2. A fascinating topic that captures what goes on in the minds of those in the midst of a disaster.
3. It reads like an exciting action plot complemented nicely by sound science research.
4. I really liked Ripley’s approach. The book is structured cleverly to match the three phases of the survival arc: denial, deliberation and decisiveness. It flows beautifully and an excellent use of flashbacks to tease the readers to satisfactory insights. Fantastic!
5. One of the few books that in fact may help you survive a disaster. I loved the overall tone of the book; you don’t get a sense of dire but one of purpose and better understanding of why people react the way they do.
6. Every chapter highlights a disaster and proceeds to introduce the people involved and their state of minds as the disaster develops. “We worry about horrible things happening to us, but we don’t know much about what it actually feels like. I wondered what they had learned.”
7. This book succeeds because: Ripley has endless curiosity for the topic, conviction, applies sound logic backed by good science research, and great storytelling. In the author’s notes she discloses her sound methodology.
8. Great use of sound research. “Laughter—or silence—is a classic manifestation of denial, as is delay.”
9. Many facts shared throughout the book, “The fires caused by the 9/11 attacks were the deadliest in American history, killing 2,666 people.”
10. A very interesting look at risks and unintended consequences. “But something terrible happened in the name of common sense. In the two years after 9/11, an estimated 2,302 additional people were likely killed because they drove instead of flew, according to a 2006 study of road accidents in America by three Cornell University professors.”
11. Practical advice. “Warnings need to tell people what to do. Since people aren’t sure what action they should take in response to an Orange Alert for terrorism, the color codes are unsatisfying—like someone clinking a glass to give a toast and then standing there in silence.”
12. Great job of describing what happens to us during disasters, the physiology of fear. “This curious sense of aloofness, called ‘dissociation,’ can feel subtle. In a study of 115 police officers involved in serious shootings, 90 percent reported having some kind of dissociative symptom—from numbing to a loss of awareness to memory problems. At its most extreme, dissociation can take the form of an out-of-body experience.” Great stuff!
13. Understanding our brains. “The brain literally changes in structure and function throughout our lives, depending on what we do.”
14. Great stories throughout the book. The Dominican Republic embassy hostage situation in Columbia was fascinating because it was told from the perspective of the hostage and the hostage takers.
15. A look at resilience. “Resilience is a precious skill. People who have it tend to also have three underlying advantages: a belief that they can influence life events; a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life’s turmoil; and a conviction that they can learn from both positive and negative experiences. These beliefs act as a sort of buffer, cushioning the blow of any given disaster.”
16. The role groupthink plays during disasters. “Groupthink, then, is the adaptive strategy of prioritizing group harmony. Dissent is uncomfortable for the group because it can be dangerous to the individual. Sometimes, when we appear to value the group ahead of our own skin, we are actually doing something else altogether.”
17. An excellent chapter on panic exemplified by a stampede. The three conditions of panic.
18. A chapter that my reveal to you what you would do in a disaster. “Many go on to experience extreme remorse because they think they simply surrendered to their attacker, Gallup has found. “They don’t realize that what they did may have been a very adaptive reaction.” Paralysis can also make prosecution of the rapist much more difficult, since the lack of struggle may look a lot like consent.”
19. Compelling arguments that resonate. “I told him that our behavior is almost always a product of our genetics and our experience.”
20. So what makes a hero, a rescuer? “Rescuers tended to have had healthier and closer relationships with their parents. They were also more likely to have had friends of different religions and classes. Their most important quality seemed to be empathy.”
21. Notes and formal bibliography provided.
Negatives:
1. Very little to criticize here but perhaps a lack of visual material such as charts, timetables or graphs may have added even more value to this fantastic book.
2. I’m being nitpicky but a where are they now appendix would have been icing on the cake. Ripley does such a great job of describing the people involved in these disasters that we as readers care about their well-being. I’m sure many readers would like to know how they are doing today. In many instances it is in fact part of the narrative as she describes them being interviewed and such.
In summary, as an avid reader of non-fiction you never know when you are going to find a gem that strikes all the right notes and this is such a book. It combines a fascinating topic such as what happens to people in the midst of disasters with scientific insights of why that is. It’s really a book on the science of how people react to disasters. Captivating! I highly recommend it!
Further recommendations: “The Smartest Kid in the World” by the same author, “Deep Survival” by Laurence Gonzales, “Survivor Personality” by Al Siebert, “Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger” by Jeff Wise, “Surviving the Extremes” by Kenneth Kamler, “Supersurvivors” by David B. Feldman, “Subliminal” by Leonard Mlodinow, “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, “The Tell-Tale Brain” by V.S. Ramachandran, and “Incognito” by David Eagleman.
January 12, 2026
I tend to be the kind of person that doesn’t consider the risk of disasters because I personally believe the chance of them happening to me is miniscule. Yes, I am culpable of not listening to the safety briefings on planes. I went into *The Unthinkable* with an open mind though, I love human psychology and I suppose it is beneficial to consider the risks I face in everyday life. There was a lot I got out of it for sure, Ripley, covers all kinds of disasters and how people have behave during them. Like how many people were much slower to leave the Twin Towers during 9/11, or how people try to grab their belongings in a plane crash. I feel like I gained a much better understanding of how I’m most likely to react in a disaster and how to prepare for those to increase my chance of survival should that situation ever arise. One of my favorite aspects of the book were actually the survivor interviews, the stories of triumph through disaster were heartwarming.
My main complaint from the audiobook is that I found it fairly disjointed at times, my brain struggled to make connections from the topics she was talking about. She would jump fairly quickly from disaster to disaster and I had a hard time discerning her main argument. I also just found it repetitive at times, and it felt like she’d make the same point just phrase it in different ways, her ‘Denial” chapter and ‘Freeze’ chapter for instance. Perhaps this experience doesn’t carry over to book. Despite my gripes I did find *The Unthinkable* to be valuable and I will likely think back to it often when considering the risks of my everyday life. No promises on listening to the safety briefings on planes though.
My main complaint from the audiobook is that I found it fairly disjointed at times, my brain struggled to make connections from the topics she was talking about. She would jump fairly quickly from disaster to disaster and I had a hard time discerning her main argument. I also just found it repetitive at times, and it felt like she’d make the same point just phrase it in different ways, her ‘Denial” chapter and ‘Freeze’ chapter for instance. Perhaps this experience doesn’t carry over to book. Despite my gripes I did find *The Unthinkable* to be valuable and I will likely think back to it often when considering the risks of my everyday life. No promises on listening to the safety briefings on planes though.
April 29, 2024
I found this book very interesting. Although it may not, and is not expected to, save the reader from every possible disaster, for those disasters that may be survivable, this book addresses various human responses and how understanding these responses works to the reader's advantage. Some valuable 'take aways' include it will probably be other people who do the saving and not so much first responders who come later (although there certainly are cases where it was the first responders with the equipment and training who save people). The positive uptake is regular people are capable of far more than the authorities and even we expect although it's also true that in disasters, instead of panicking, many people chose to do nothing as in ignoring the disaster. The book is organized around various responses such as freezing, panicking, and heroism and includes survivor interviews. Back to panicking, this book gives a good explanation of those situations in which people panic as to what triggers it. Everyone needs an edge and I'm glad I read this to get an 'edge'. My rating is 5 stars.
March 7, 2024
I waited months for this book to be available through my library and it was worth it. By far, one of the most fascinating and compelling books I’ve read in my entire life; giving it 5 stars doesn’t feel anywhere close to sufficient. Touching on topics of human psychology, neuroscience, and biology of people in disaster (although not as intricately as the title may imply), the author retells people’s stories of what they did (or didn’t do) when finding themselves in a life threatening situation. Despite more of a storytelling approach to this topic than getting into the nitty gritty of the science, I’m nowhere close to disappointed. Heartbreaking at times and gracefully written, you end each chapter knowing you will never forget their stories or their names, and leave the book feeling a hope for humanity.
March 3, 2026
Everyone! Read this book! Not only may it save your life with all the practical tips (I will always read the safety instructions on a plane from now on), but you will learn so much about human behavior and our unexpected reactions under extreme stress and duress. This author is now an automatic read for me. She’s an investigative journalist by trade and does impeccable research, telling stories in such an engaging way. I loved her book High Conflict and I loved this one too. There’s a touch of neuroscience, which always fascinates me, but don’t let that scare you. The audio narrator is wonderful - I was riveted.
October 8, 2024
An excellent read. It is ok to be prepared in the event of a disaster and it doesn't mean you have to be a doomsday prepper. But awareness of one's surroundings, of exits in a building, and having a plan can be the difference between surviving or not. Meticulously researched and documented. I will probably read it again just to keep it fresh in my mind.
January 29, 2026
I was hoping for some more concrete answers on how to improve my survival
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