How to Survive a Crisis

Lessons in Resilience and Avoiding Disaster

By: David Omand

Narrated by: David Omand

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the former Director of GCHQ comes a guide to surviving crises using the latest intelligence strategies

War, terrorism, cyberattack, climate change, the threat of AI: it has never been more important to be prepared for the crises that await us.

In How to Survive a Crisis, Professor Sir David Omand draws on his experience in defence, security and intelligence, including as Director of GCHQ and UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator, to show how you can detect a looming crisis and extinguish it (or at least survive it with minimum loss).

Using gripping real-world examples from Omand's storied career, and drawing lessons from historic catastrophes such as Chernobyl, 9/11, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the WannaCry ransomware cyberattack, this empowering book is filled with practical advice on how to survive the multiplying crises of the future. Not every crisis need tip into disaster, if we have invested in we are prepared for it.

'David Omand is exactly the man you need in a crisis' RORY STEWART

'This book is the instruction manual we all need' SIR ALEX YOUNGER, CHIEF OF MI6

©2023 David Omand (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

Piercingly insightful, brilliantly lucid and illuminating, frightening and wise. Professor Sir David Omand has spent his life working at the very heart of the state and he brings this unique historical perspective to disasters that have befallen - and could yet befall - the nation and the wider world. From nuclear meltdown to apocalyptic cyber-attacks, from pandemics to the drums of war, here is a remarkable record of how the threads of society can be held firm in the darkest days. He writes with passion, fierce intelligence, sometimes with anger but also, fundamentally, with an optimistic vision: civilisation can prevail (Sinclair McKay, Sunday Times-bestselling author of Dresden)

An extraordinary achievement. Probably the best book ever written on crisis management which, as Sir David Omand persuasively argues, mostly amounts to "crisis survival". A superlative blend of his personal experience of modern crises and historical insights. Essential reading for our post-Covid-19 world (Christopher Andrew)