Wilful Blindness: Why we ignore the obvious at our peril

Wilful Blindness: Why we ignore the obvious at our peril, Margaret Heffernan, Simon 8 Schuster, 2011, 400 pages, £72.99, ISBN 978 1 847 37770 8

Margaret Heffernan has created a cross-disciplinary study in order to understand why individuals and organisations make decisions which are blind to obvious dangers. She has made strong links between Psychology and Neurology and issues in Economics and Business Studies, tying each blockage to clear 'vision' into the case studies.

This is very much a book for our time: it makes sense of behaviour in a wide range of situations, from safety at BP to sub-prime lending leading up to the credit crunch. The concept of 'wilful blindness' has been raised several times in House of Commons debates and enquiries into News International's corporate behaviour. Therefore, I believe that this is a key book for all students of Economics and Business Studies.

'Wilful Blindness' can...