Five-Alarm Fire

Who has time for history, and a guide to managing disasters of the future, when such vast, self-inflicted damage—the legacy of Obamaism, the promise of Trumpism come to mind—must be dealt with at the moment? Here's a wager: Tevi Troy's new book will do well now. It's carefully researched, well written, and draws on Troy's experience in government in a practical and exceptionally refreshing way. (When's the last time you read a book by a former administration official that wasn't at least, in part, a self-branding endeavor?)The rest of the bet? A book chiefly about planning is going to sell like mad one day—after the next mega-disaster hits the United States. Sooner or later, as Troy warns us, the cataclysm is gonna get you. That's the lesson of history, and Troy's survey is a staggering reminder of how, time and again, blind spots and hubris get in the way of saving lives. He cites this little ditty sung by American schoolchildren at the end of World War I: