New Books Network Robert Hall, "Building Resilient Futures" (Austin Macauley, 2023)
Apr 1, 2026
Robert Hall, former British Army officer turned resilience consultant and author of Building Resilient Futures (2023). He explores personal, social, urban, and national resilience. Shortcase studies include COVID, the Winter War, and Ladbroke Grove. Topics include redundancy vs just-in-time systems, community bonds over stockpiles, teaching resilience to youth, and lessons from history like Shackleton and Finnish sisu.
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Preparedness Paradox And Resource Tradeoffs
- Resilience requires balancing capabilities with resources and accepting a preparedness paradox.
- Hall uses the minesweeper example and Y2K to show spending on redundancy can look wasted if a crisis is averted by that spending.
NHS Strain And Recovery During COVID
- The NHS nearly collapsed in COVID yet personnel, volunteers and vaccines enabled recovery.
- Hall notes exhausted staff sleeping at hospitals and the inquiry spending millions to learn lessons from PPE and vaccine shortfalls.
Adapt To New Normal Not Return To Old
- Treat resilience as adaptation and a learning journey, not merely returning to the old normal.
- Hall advises using past responses as templates while adjusting to new circumstances because future events won't be identical.
