STOP THE PRESSES! This nonfiction book has a publishing date of July 14, 2020, and has already become outdated in the light of the current worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. I would urge the publisher to postpone publishing this book 'as is' if at all possible until the crisis has ended, giving the author time to include it in this important and timely guide to preparing for megadisasters: to discuss what worked and what systems crumbled during the crisis, and what we could possibly do differently in the future to better prepare ourselves. Now THAT would be a terrific book!

Topics covered:
Biothreats
Climate Change
Critical Infrastructure Failure
Cyberthreats
Nuclear Conflict

and Conclusions:
Investing in Today, Investing in Tomorrow

I received an arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my review.

It's a unique and unexpectedly timely coincidence for me to be reviewing a book that looks into twenty-first century megadisasters in the midst of a global pandemic. Rethinking Readiness takes a brief look into the history and current direction of disaster prepardness planning, and is due to be published in the summer; months after the world coming to grips with the chaos and fear of this current health crisis. The book provides an overview of biothreats, climate change, critical infrastructure, cyberthreats, nuclear conflict, and cross-cutting threats.

Will it fix the immediate crisis? No.

Is it still worthwhile to read? Yes.

Will it help to provide context for the current chaos? Yes, and I do wish this wasn't a brief guide but a deep comprehensive review. But that's not the goal of this slim volume. Schlegelmilch, in Rethinking Readiness, provides an approachable and understandable history to help us begin to reframe and strategize. Disaster science is still in its infancy and globalisation has completely changed the world we know. Covid-19 has implications that will be more far reaching than we can comprehend today. This book will help us begin to reframe our views.

An addendum: Schlegelmilch stated via Twitter on 03 April 2020 that he drafted a new preface to discuss the implications of Covid-19 & why its impacts will reach far beyond pandemics. I look forward to reading it when available.

There would be no better time than present to read such book which focuses on disasters.
As world tries to survive covid-19, this book is very timely description of various megadisasters which are quite possible in coming decades.
It discusses bio threats, superbugs, Infrastructure failures and climate change.

There are very interesting and recent examples of disasters and their impact.
There is also discussion about what can be done to survive these.
Book is short, Interesting and very informative.
It provides many things that can be learnt and leveraged upon in ever unstable ecological balance.
Thanks netgalley and publisher for review copy.

As I wrote my review I increased my rating because I think recent events in this time of pandemic have demonstrated that what's obvious to me is not obvious to others. There's a vocal subset of the population who needs to learn to rethink readiness.