Risk is all pervasive. An individual faces physical risks from driving a car, career risks from the possible bankruptcy of one's employer, financial risks from investing his or her savings in equities. A company faces the risk of collapse of a traditional market, or of research failure for a new product. A government may face an unexpected strike or a foreign government's rebuff to a diplomatic overture. While in some areas, such as life assurance, risk is well understood and systematically handled in an accepted manner, this is not common in other areas of economic and social activity.

The proceedings of a 1980 Royal Society symposium on risk were published under the title The Assessment and Perception of Risk. Lord Ashby's introduction gave a commercial example concerning the damages involved from a collision between two ships. The fifteen papers in the volume dealt, however, almost exclusively with areas of personal physical risk. I hope this book will help to answer the kind of question posed by Lord Ashby and redress the narrow perspective given to the subject, no doubt accidentally, by the Royal Society symposium.

The three principal messages conveyed are: first, risk arises in some form or other in virtually all fields of endeavour; second, it is important neither to ignore risk nor to be frightened by it; third, systematic methods to assess and handle risks can be developed. After an introduction and four general chapters dealing with risk assessment, the book examines the progress that has been made in handling risk in seven distinct fields. While these fields are not exhaustive, they cover the more common risk areas.