Governing Risk

The literature of social work is replete with titles that have risk as their starting point. A cursory look at the published material shows that, in the main, there are three themes that emerge strongly: the political and social (e.g. Webb, 2006), the theoretical (e.g. Parton, 2006) and the practitioner/how to themes (e.g. Calder, 2008). This book is different in that it approaches the field from both a theoretical and a practical stance. The book, although concise in size, is big on intent and this perhaps is its major weakness in that it possibly tries to be too ambitious in its aims. This (and the author acknowledges it) is apparent in the first chapters, which try to encapsulate both a short history of social work and the rise of risk within it, taking a look at ideas from Beck, Giddens and Douglas. I was left wanting a little more and was quite disappointed by the lack of references used in the writing. This lack of references was evident in a number of other sections and was for me as a reader a significant shortcoming in that, if the book is to be fully recommended to students, then more guidance as to where the ideas ‘come from’ and where to go for further reading is important, particularly given the fact that the book discusses the idea of how and when practitioners use (or not) theoretical knowledge.

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• Social Work in a Risk Society

  Open Access•Stephen A Webb•Social Work in a Risk Society•2006

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