The Red Book in Historical Context

Abstract

The essays in this issue of the Journal of Human and Ecological Risk Assessment celebrate the National Research Council's report Risk Assessment in the Federal Government: Manging the Process, known as the “Red Book,” and commemorate the report's contributions to environmental risk assessment. Without hyperbole, one can make a plausible case that the Red Book not only defined risk assessment as policy-making tool but inspired a new academic meta-discipline. It gave credibility to an analytical approach that many of those engaged in setting environmental policy had already begun to practice. It may even be credited as the inspiration for the formation of a new professional association, The Society for Risk Analysis.My goal is not to repeat or add to these accolades. I leave to my colleagues the task of justifying the praise that has been lavished upon this slim volume. I want to step back and put the Red Book Committee's work in historical context even if, in so doing, I cast doubt on the magnitude of our accomplishment. However, it is not a bad thing to pause, in the midst of self-congratulation, to ask whether our product deserves the attention it is now receiving. My personal view is that the Red Book has been influential not because it revealed new avenues for agencies, courts, and scholars, but because it endorsed approaches that they had already begun to explore.