Writing for professionals who manage, supervise, and carry out maintenance activities in a range of industries, Reason (psychology, emeritus, University of Manchester, UK) and Hobbs (San Jose State University Foundation at the NASA Ames Research Center) deal with human risks in general and the special human performance problems in maintenance, providing an engineer's guide to understanding and addressing the threat of maintenance error. Coverage of types of errors and the conditions that provoke them are illustrated by examples of three system failures. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)