Excerpt from False Alarms and Real Dangers: An Oration States and kingdoms have exemplified the too common instability of human institutions and the insufficiency of the basis upon which political societies are too frequently founded. Still these changes and revolutions have not been such as to cause regret or to arouse distrust. The period which comprises our national record, has been the world's bright particular period of growth in material prosperity, in social enlightenment and in substantial civilization. Science and the arts have not merely advanced, but they have assumed new and unwonted theatres for the exhibition of their capabilities, and have so fully developed into new and higher forms of organized utility, that they are to be no longer recognized by their former features and outlines. Industry has secured a marvelous multiplication of the instruments required for the accomplishment of its results. Business has discovered far ampler and more remunerative fields for the display of its energies, and has extended its dominion by wholly novel and hitherto unused modes of conquest. Thus, while the Republic enters upon the one hundreth year of its existence, with a conscious developement of it own powers and resources, it finds that the ouside world, in the meanwhile, has been far from remaining stationary. The growth of the nation's faculties and the developement of its own interior political system, have been coincident with an altered phase of human society elsewhere. This growth of the Republic has of necessity involved the formation of new links of intercourse and the assumption of new responsibilities in its inevitable relation to a world which, in thought, in modes of action, in the boldness of its undertakings, in the reach and sweep of its enterprise, in its ambition for grand and successful achievement, in its steady measurement of the utility of theory by the results of practice, has been revolutionized since the memorable day on which our fathers staked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for liberty and independence, and, in the unselfishness of their devotion, opened a new chapter and fixed a new era in the history of mankind. Work Of The Past Century - Organization. In the century now closing, the really great questions with which the nation has been required to grapple, have been those of organization. This work may, however, be now regarded as complete. The Republic is now established upon the foundations of sectional harmony and universal liberty. The chief causes which gave suspicion of its imperfection, have, fortunately, been removed. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

We live in a world of risk. It waits for us in our refrigerator and surrounds us on the freeway. It's lurking in our arteries and sitting in our 401(k) accounts. Given that we deal with risk on a constant basis, we should be good at it; as it turns out, though, we're not. We're blind to common risks like heart disease (one in five deaths), but we shrink in fear from rare events like shark attacks (one in a million) and airplane crashes (one in twenty thousand). What accounts for our poor ability to perceive and react to the risks that really matter? Starting from an evolutionary perspective, the author traces our distorted perception of risk back to our ancestors, reminding readers that we are all the culmination of a long line of survivors who fought life-and-death threats such as attacks from wild animals, starvation, and disease. The fact that we have covered Earth with seven billion people is a testament to our skill at overcoming these risks. But our spectacular success has also produced our contemporary artificial world with new threats like climate change, chili dogs, and online gambling. Our brains, which evolved to deal with the ancient world, are ill equipped to process the new threats we face. Croston examines the many facets of our hazardous modern environment that we only dimly perceive. He explains why we let our guard down for a beautiful face, why slow-moving risks (like rising seas) are hard to stop, how a good story (though false) can be more persuasive than dry statistics (even alarming ones), what we fear even more than death, and many other intriguing quirks about our built-in incompetence to adequately handle present-day risks. Offering a wealth of fascinating information about health, sex, money, safety, food, and the environment, this book illuminates an often-misunderstood but crucial aspect of daily life.