Bent Flyvbjerg, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017). 600 pp. $150.00 (cloth), ISBN: 9780198732242

• Date: 01 September 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12984
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• Author: Martin Wachs

816 Public Administration Review • Septe mber | Oct ober 2 018

Bent Flyvbjerg is a man on a mission. He leads

a worldwide effort to elevate scholarship about

megaprojects to intellectual prominence. The

world’s most frequently cited author on megaprojects,

he founded the graduate program in megaproject

management at Oxford University’s Said School of

Business, where he holds the first chair in megaproject

management. Megaprojects are huge, complex

projects that take decades to plan and realize, cost

billions of dollars, impact millions of people, capture

headlines, and captivate the public imagination.

Canals, bridges, airports, railways, huge office

complexes, the Olympics, and the global adoption

of computer software systems are examples of

megaprojects that fascinate us and yet are fraught with

risk. These universally recognized projects sometimes

are portrayed in the media as exciting adventures

that changed the world, often as colossal failures, and

sometimes as both.

The Oxford Handbook is the latest in a long series of

works by its editor. Earlier, Flyvbjerg and his associates

documented hundreds of megaprojects—transit

systems, bridges, and dams—providing evidence

that these complex and politically irresistible but

explosive projects often fail to achieve the promises

Bent Flyvbjerg, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Megaproject

Management (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017).

600 pp. $150.00 (cloth), ISBN: 9780198732242

Reviewed by: Martin Wachs

University of California

Martin Wachs is distinguished professor

emeritus of Civil and Environmental

Engineering and City and Regional

Planning at the University of California.

He was chair of the Department of Urban

Planning at UCLA, director of the University

of California Transportation Center, and

chairman of the Transportation Research

Board of the National Academies of

Sciences and Engineering.

E-mail: mwachs@ucla.edu; mwachs@

luskin.ucla.edu

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 78, Iss. 5, pp. 816–818. © 2018 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12984.