Customer Reviews

Beyond 2012: What the Government Already Knows and What You Need to Know to Prepare

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I've read two other books on the subject and though I've enjoyed them both, I appreciate that this book doesn't carry on with useless commentary or drifting thoughts. Concrete examples are given. The material is well organized and easy to grasp. Very little is discussed about the Mayas or their calendar--it delivers just what it claims in the title. It's less new age and more hands-on. I suppose none of these books could be considered scientific, but this book comes pretty close, backing every event with a reasonable explanation for why the events are possible.

The book offers a great deal of valuable information on the future of the world. Insights help the reader to understand regions of the globe that will be more negatively impacted, economic areas where systems will fail and where economies will thrive, and what the biggest threats to our physical safety are and how to mitigate them. The book ends with a section on emergency survival, which I found very valuable on its own.

I was taken with this book. It covers all the most likely scenarios expected to occur around the 2012 Mayan calendar end date. Reading it, you quickly realize that nothing is being exaggerated here, everything described is completely plausible, and when you look around, you can almost feel that we're on the brink of something. Apparently, the information was compiled based on official government reports and analysis buried deep in the government records. The book itself, however, reads more like an informative book / survival guide.
The chapters are:
1. 2012 Global Landscape
2. The Sun Earth Connection
3. Extreme Weather Events
4. Earth Changes
5. Global Pandemics
6. Other Health Threats
7. Quarantine and Isolation
8. Global Conflicts
9. Biological and Chemical Warfare
10. Emergency Preparation

This book works well as a compliment to other books on the subject. It does not go into too much on the spiritual awakening or journey. It's focus is on real physical changes that we will have to prepare for in the years to follow 2012. It also gives real life advice on how to adapt and/or avoid circumstances that will be coming for much of civilization.

This book reminds me of Forrest Gump's friend Bubba and his neverending list of shrimp variations...except this list is all the already known calamities which could be encountered in the future. You got your natural disasters - floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes; you got your medical disasters - swine flu, avian flu, contagious diseases, MRSA; you got your regular terrorism, your bio-terrorism; you got your nuclear disaster, your chemical warfare; you got your high oil prices, your melting ice shelves, your international conflicts... Anything you didn't already know yet? Apparently all of these events, as well as solar flares, will still be around after 2012(and, the "government" knows it)so no surprises here.

This book is a simple review of all of the natural, man-made, cosmic, terrorist disasters that could happen and affect the world. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH 2012 although all could be a possible calamity in 2012. Paragraphs are devoted to entire diseases. It has an elementary feel as a PRIMER and offers commonsense preparedness advice should one of the many things occur. There is an occasional forecast that such and such will happen in 2012 or later...but it is the author's opinion without even any corroboration for it. No evidence is presented. No facts are presented. There are no citations. There is no research. Andrew Jordan has simply capitalized on the growing interest in 2012 and wrote a book with a title that is enticing. In reality, he write nothing about 2012 that could not have happened any year and fails to discuss in anyway "what the government already knows" about 2012. This is book that misleads a buyer with a catchy title, is a waste of time to read (save to keep it as a primer about calamities) and a complete waste of money.

This book steals its title from the original encyclopedic work, Beyond 2012: Catastrophe or Ecstasy, by Geoff Stray, published in US as Beyond 2012: Catastrophe or Awakening. Unlike this doomsday book which is viral marketing for the Hollywood 2012 doomsday film, the original Beyond 2012 is fully referenced and balanced, with extensive notes - see Amazon reviews for both UK and US versions. This is the second time the book title has been copied. If someone copied a Harry Potter title, there would be a lawsuit and the book would be withdrawn, but who can fight the backers of this?

You have to search a bit to find the author's name; it's on the spine of the book The information on possible forthcoming global disasters is repetitive of what is in just about any previoous book about 12/21/2012. Besides it could be better edited. On page 45, for example, in writing of the categories of hurricanes, he uses numerals such as "4", or spells it our, "One and Two" with a lack of consistency. .Nitpicking on miy part, probably, but along the way a word is missing occasionally, and I had to read the sentence twice. I am not acquainted with Pacific Publishing Studio. Do they solicit manuscripts? What to do to prepare for disaster may possibly be found in the front of your local phone book.

Beyond 2012 really brings it home. The U.S. government has already been planning on this and preparing for it. It looks like most of the research was done through the public records kept by various government agencies, but it's written in a very reader friendly way, not dry at all or report-like. So many government agencies are all in the know about 2012, but no one is talking about it in the mainstream press.
I would have liked to read more about different interpretations of the Maya calendar and other possibilities, but that's an entirely different book. Beyond 2012 exclusively covers outcomes that the government is expecting and preparing for. Everything from solar flares to conflicts among nations and food scarcity to deadly pandemics; all are described here and predicted by inside sources in the post-2012 world.

If this is what the government knows, it's hard to believe the government has looked at anything at all. There may be two actual citations of references in the entire book, and the rest appears to be a compilation of information about disaster preparedness, adding nothing new to the discussion. Simply, this is little more than a rehash of old information with a splashy title and cover. It seems the only really new information involves a general alarm to watch out for volcanic ash, rising oceans and tides, and general warming trends.

This book is very disappointing on two fronts:

1) "What the government knows" is in the book's subtitle. Like many people, I misunderstood this to mean secret information about 2012. It isn't. It is bog standard information paraphrased from official government websites like FEMA. Consequently it is very boring, and there are no surprises.

2) I thought it would have something to do with 2012. It doesn't. A better title would be "Ordinary Official Information on Natural Disasters". For example, there are 22 pages on Climate Change. That's something that might affect us 50 years from now. Not next year.

I see no reason for anyone to own this book. It is essentially a long high school essay on natural disasters and pandemics. And having the same title as the excellent Geoff Stray book is wrong as well.