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The Devil Never Sleeps

Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters

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The Devil Never Sleeps

By: Juliette Kayyem
Narrated by: Juliette Kayyem
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An indispensable guide to dealing with disasters from one of today’s foremost thinkers in crisis management, now updated with a new afterword.

“In a world marred by preventable miscalculation, Juliette Kayyem’s The Devil Never Sleeps provides a playbook for making it out alive.” —The New Yorker

The future may be unpredictable, but nowadays, disasters are not. We live in a time of consistent catastrophe, where things more often go wrong than right. So why do we still fumble when crisis strikes?

In The Devil Never Sleeps, Juliette Kayyem outlines a radical new way to prepare for disasters. Traditional principles of crisis management, focused on preventing disasters, are no longer viable. We need a forward-thinking approach that allows us to respond, recover, and build more resilience when crisis occurs.

Drawing on her experience in national security and assessing real-life examples—from natural disasters like the California wildfires to human-made ones like airplane collisions—Kayyem identifies common lessons that can be implemented now to limit harm in the future. The Devil Never Sleeps is an essential guide for developing strategies that actually work in the face of perpetual catastrophe.

Career Success Disaster Relief Politics & Government Social Sciences
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Critics' reviews

“Kayyem combines real-world national security experience, the everyday personal experiences of an individual, and the genius of a policy thinker for her compelling and engaging new book. Virtually anything Kayyem writes is a must-read and she has put it all together to help us prepare for our era of disasters.”—Jeh Johnson, former secretary of homeland security
“From 9/11 through the pandemic, the United States has been battered by several decades of emergencies. Even more, and worse, are ahead. Juliette Kayyem has a clear-eyed, sane, urgent-but-not-frantic set of principles to guide us in dealing with ‘the devil.’ We’ll all be better off for following her advice.”—James Fallows, National Book Award winner
“Juliette Kayyem is who we call when disaster strikes for a reason: she’s calm, unafraid, and deeply informed. Here she leaves no disaster unturned as she shows how we can be ready to respond. She’ll open your eyes: you’ll definitely never think of Fukushima, fires, or even Beyoncé the same way again.”—Erin Burnett, CNN anchor
“Juliette Kayyem’s infectious energy and passion for reasoned crisis management jump out of the pages of her book. She has written a succinct, compelling kitchen-table tutorial on how to get your head around crises. A must-read for first responders, crisis managers, and the normal citizen who wants to anticipate, prepare, cope, and be resilient.”—James Clapper, former national intelligence director
“We live in a dangerous world where big trouble is inevitable. Oddly, those who warn us to be better prepared are often dismissed. But Juliette Kayyem refuses to be a modern-day Cassandra. Get your head around this book and get smart. Or ignore her lessons at your own peril.”—Miles O’ Brien, correspondent, PBS Newshour
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I was hoping to get some insight into disasters management from a professional, but instead I got a really superficial booklet-like knowledge that could be handed over at a local municipality office. You can sum up the book in one sentence - disasters happen, we need to prepare, but those in power don't do it because it's expensive, then a couple of well-known incidents mentioned, without any explanation of the mechanics of the disaster or what was done (or neglected). The performance of the voice actress is very intense, without any change of intonation. It all sounds like a shouted protest message. This book could easily be summarised in an email.

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