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Uncertain business : risk, insurance and the limits of knowledge / Richard V. Ericson and Aaron Doyle.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublisher: Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2004]Copyright date: ©2004Description: viii, 332 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 0802087590
  • 9780802087591
  • 0802085628
  • 9780802085627
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 368 22
LOC classification:
  • HG8054.5 .E75 2004
Contents:
1. Risk, insurance, and the limits of knowledge -- 2. Uncertainties of life : embracing risk, prudence, and investment -- 3. Uncertainties of disability : spreading risk, solidarity, and welfare -- 4. Uncertainties of earthquakes : absorbing risk, mitigation, and infrastructure -- 5. Uncertainties of terrorism : pre-empting risk, precaution, and vigilance -- 6. Uncertain business.
Review: "Uncertain Business explores insurance industry practices and what they tell us about risks and uncertainties in contemporary society. The core of the book is a set of unique ethnographic studies of the insurance industry. Addressing four fields of insurance - life, disability, earthquake, and terrorism, - these studies reveal that a high degree of uncertainty pervades the insurance business, the very industry that is charged with transforming uncertainty into manageable risk. The authors show how scientific data on risk are often absent, inadequate, controversial, contradictory, or ignored, and how insurers often impose meaning on uncertainty through non-scientific forms of knowledge that are intuitive, emotional, aesthetic, moral, and speculative. Furthermore, the nature of uncertainty and the response to it varies substantially across the areas studied, showing how contemporary society is characterized by competing interests and forms of logic in regard to risk."--BOOK JACKET.
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Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Book City Campus City Campus Main Collection 368 ERI (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available A267243B
Book City Campus City Campus Main Collection 368 ERI (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available A267589B

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Risk, insurance, and the limits of knowledge -- 2. Uncertainties of life : embracing risk, prudence, and investment -- 3. Uncertainties of disability : spreading risk, solidarity, and welfare -- 4. Uncertainties of earthquakes : absorbing risk, mitigation, and infrastructure -- 5. Uncertainties of terrorism : pre-empting risk, precaution, and vigilance -- 6. Uncertain business.

"Uncertain Business explores insurance industry practices and what they tell us about risks and uncertainties in contemporary society. The core of the book is a set of unique ethnographic studies of the insurance industry. Addressing four fields of insurance - life, disability, earthquake, and terrorism, - these studies reveal that a high degree of uncertainty pervades the insurance business, the very industry that is charged with transforming uncertainty into manageable risk. The authors show how scientific data on risk are often absent, inadequate, controversial, contradictory, or ignored, and how insurers often impose meaning on uncertainty through non-scientific forms of knowledge that are intuitive, emotional, aesthetic, moral, and speculative. Furthermore, the nature of uncertainty and the response to it varies substantially across the areas studied, showing how contemporary society is characterized by competing interests and forms of logic in regard to risk."--BOOK JACKET.

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