About
Amanda Ripley, a longtime TIME Magazine contributor, has traveled the world studying disasters, natural and manmade. Her book, , is the first major book to explain how the brain works in disasters — and how we can learn to do better.
Amanda is a literary pragmatist. In her book and in her work for TIME and other magazines, she escorts us into the darkest regions of the human experience, flicks on a flashlight and searches for signs of life. She chronicled Hurricanes Katrina and Rita from New Orleans, La., helping TIME win two National Magazine Awards. She covered 9/11 and the anthrax attacks from Manhattan, the sniper attacks from Washington and the catastrophic 2003 European heat wave from Paris.
What makes Amanda’s work unusual is that she doesn’t just explain what happened; she obsessively investigates why people do what they do, and how we can do better.
- “How to Get Out Alive: The Science of Evacuation”
- “How We Got Homeland Security Wrong”
- “Hurricane Katrina: How did this happen?”
- “The Gangs of New Orleans”
- “Can Michelle Rhee Save Our Schools?”
- “The Fort Dix Terrorism Conspiracy”
- “The Story of Barack Obama’s Mother”
To discuss her work, Amanda has appeared on ABC, NBC, CNN, FOX News, CNBC, MSNBC, C-Span and NPR. She has briefed staff at the U.S. Senate, the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, and she has spoken at conferences on homeland security, business continuity, emergency preparedness and public health. The Unthinkable was described by the New York Times as “a fascinating and useful new book” and by NPR as “The thinking person’s manual for getting out alive.”
Amanda’s work has also appeared in Slate, the New York Times Magazine, the Times of London, National Geographic Adventure and the Washington Monthly. She has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Newswomen’s Club of New York and the Washington Monthly, among others. Before joining TIME, Amanda covered the D.C. court system for Washington City Paper and reported on Capitol Hill for Congressional Quarterly. She graduated with a BA in Government from Cornell University.
Amanda now writes about risk and human behavior from Washington.
Contact
Upcoming Events
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Unthinkable in PaperbackWednesday, July 15, 2009
The Unthinkable in ChicagoMonday, August 10, 2009
Citizen Corps, Crystal City and Other Known UnknownsTuesday, September 1, 2009
The Unthinkable in PolandMonday, September 14, 2009
The Unthinkable in California
