A timeless classic of economic theory that remains fascinating and pertinent today, this is Frank Knight's famous explanation of why perfect competition cannot eliminate profits, the important differences between "risk" and "uncertainty," and the vital role of the entrepreneur in profitmaking. Based on Knight's PhD dissertation, this 1921 work, balancing theory with fact to come to stunning insights, is a distinct pleasure to read. FRANK H. KNIGHT (1885-1972) is considered by some the greatest American scholar of economics of the 20th century. An economics professor at the University of Chicago from 1927 until 1955, he was one of the founders of the Chicago school of economics, which influenced Milton Friedman and George Stigler.

Risk has become one of the main topics in fields as diverse as engineering, medicine and economics, and it is also studied by social scientists, psychologists and legal scholars. This Springer Essentials version offers an overview of the in-depth handbook and highlights some of the main points covered in the Handbook of Risk Theory. The topic of risk also leads to more fundamental questions such as: What is risk? What can decision theory contribute to the analysis of risk? What does the human perception of risk mean for society? How should we judge whether a risk is morally acceptable or not? Over the last couple of decades questions like these have attracted interest from philosophers and other scholars into risk theory. This brief offers the essentials of the handbook provides for an overview into key topics in a major new field of research and addresses a wide range of topics, ranging from decision theory, risk perception to ethics and social implications of risk. It aims to promote communication and information among all those who are interested in theoretical issues concerning risk and uncertainty. The Essentials of Risk Theory brings together internationally leading philosophers and scholars from other disciplines who work on risk theory. The contributions are accessibly written and highly relevant to issues that are studied by risk scholars. The Essentials of Risk Theory will be a helpful starting point for all risk scholars who are interested in broadening and deepening their current perspectives. ​

The search for a distinct "terrorist profile" has been going on for many years, and while it is generally agreed that nobody is born a terrorist, there is plenty of disagreement about why a person might become one. Whereas personal and situational push and pull factors can be combined to determine how and why young people become involved in terrorism, preventing an individual from following a path that ends in violence without moral restraint poses an enormous challenge, especially in an open society. This book presents papers from the NATO Advanced Research Workshop titled "A Review of the Utility of Existing Terrorism Risk Assessment Instruments and Policies: Is there the Need for Possible New Approaches?", held in Berlin, Germany, on 29-30 November 2019. Researchers were asked to present papers for discussion sessions with invited participants and practitioners from a number of NATO member and partner countries. Various assessment instruments for identifying problematic individuals at an early stage were presented by experts. It was generally agreed that, due to cultural, religious and other differences, there is no simple way to identify the relatively few high-risk individuals among the larger population of politically radicalized but not necessarily violent individuals who pose no threat. Framed by an Introduction and Conclusion, the 16 chapters in the book are divided into three parts: Theory and Risk/Threat Assessment Instrument Policy Themes; Implementation of Politically Motivated Terrorism Protocols; and Personality Traits/Disorders, Anti-State Terrorism Profiles and the DSM-5 Personality Trait Instrument. This practice-oriented book will be of interest to all those tasked with protecting society from some of its most dangerous members.

This book bridges the gap between the many different disciplines used in applications of risk analysis to real world problems. Contributed by some of the world's leading experts, it creates a common information base and language for all risk analysis practitioners, risk managers, and decision makers. Valuable as both a reference for practitioners and a comprehensive textbook for students, Fundamentals of Risk Analysis and Risk Management is a unique contribution to the field. Its broad coverage ranges from basic theory of risk analysis to practical applications, risk perception, legal and political issues, and risk management.

Risk communication: the evolution of attempts Risk communication is at once a very new and a very old field of interest. Risk analysis, as Krimsky and Plough (1988:2) point out, dates back at least to the Babylonians in 3200 BC. Cultures have traditionally utilized a host of mecha nisms for anticipating, responding to, and communicating about hazards - as in food avoidance, taboos, stigma of persons and places, myths, migration, etc. Throughout history, trade between places has necessitated labelling of containers to indicate their contents. Seals at sites of the ninth century BC Harappan civilization of South Asia record the owner and/or contents of the containers (Hadden, 1986:3). The Pure Food and Drug Act, the first labelling law with national scope in the United States, was passed in 1906. Common law covering the workplace in a number of countries has traditionally required that employers notify workers about significant dangers that they encounter on the job, an obligation formally extended to chronic hazards in the OSHA's Hazard Communication regulation of 1983 in the United States. In this sense, risk communication is probably the oldest way of risk manage ment. However, it is only until recently that risk communication has attracted the attention of regulators as an explicit alternative to the by now more common and formal approaches of standard setting, insuring etc. (Baram, 1982).

An analysis of the condition of Western societies that will take its place as a core text of contemporary sociology alongside earlier typifications of society as postindustrial, and current debates about the social dimensions of the postmodern