Disaster Analysis

Economic data from ancient Roman construction reveal how untested innovations can bankrupt contractors, exposing the timeless tension between theoretical efficiency and practical reality.

Introducing the Five Syndromes of Failure: a diagnostic framework for understanding why engineering disasters happen, drawn from 4,600 years of catastrophic failures.

Jacques Necker's public accounting restored confidence temporarily but ultimately undermined the monarchy's legitimacy.

Dinocrates's impossible plan for Mount Athos shows how visionary design can be divorced from practical constraints, producing useless grandeur.

A dispatcher followed the rules and produced one of America's deadliest train wrecks—an example of system-induced catastrophe.

Case studies of how perfect compliance with systems and procedures can produce catastrophic outcomes.

The sinking of HMS Victoria shows how perfect obedience to flawed systems can produce catastrophic outcomes.

The unsustainable water allocations and the precarious future of Western civilization.

The catastrophic failure of the Teton Dam and the dangers of engineering overconfidence.

The massive dams and engineering works that transformed the West, funded by federal welfare programs.