How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques and Technologies for Uncertain Times. James Wesley, Rawles [Sic] [Paperback]

James Wesley Rawles (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2009

This is the definitive guide on how to prepare for any crisis, from global financial collapse to a flu pandemic. It would only take one unthinkable event to disrupt our way of life. If there is a terrorist attack, a flu pandemic, or sharp currency devaluation, you may be forced to fend for yourself in ways you've never imagined. Where would you get water? How would you communicate with relatives? What would you use for fuel? Survivalist expert James Wesley, Rawles, editor of SurvivalBlog.com and a former US Army Intelligence officer, shares the essential tools and skills you will need for your family to survive, including how to find and build a retreat, store food, supply power, rear animals, administer medicine, barter, and defend your family. 'Save those wine corks. Burned cork makes quick and cheap face camouflage'. 'Store only foods with minimal spices. When you are surrounded by starving people, just heating up a can of spicy chili con carne could be a death warrant'. 'If you are on a budget, you might get away with a good-quality bolt-action rifle'.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

James Wesley, Rawles is the founder and editor of SurvivalBlog.com, the internet's most popular blog on preparing for future disasters. He is a former US Army Intelligence Officer and a world-renowned expert on survivalist topics, including food storage, self-defence, communications, retreat security, survival vehicles, and gardening for self-sufficiency. His clients include Fortune 500 executives, clergy, and entrepreneurs. He and his family live in a fully self-sufficient retreat that is nestled in a mountain range "somewhere west of the Rockies."

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

An Extremely Fragile Society

We live in a time of relative prosperity. Our health care is excellent, our grocery-store shelves bulge with a huge assortment of fresh foods, and our telecommunications systems are lightning fast. We have cheap transportation, with our cities linked by an elaborate and fairly well-maintained system of roads, freeways, rails, canals, seaports, and airports. For the first time in human history, the majority of the world’s population now lives in cities.

But the downside to all this abundance is overcomplexity, overspecialization, and overly long supply chains. In the First World, less than 2 percent of the population is engaged in agriculture or fishing. Ponder that for a moment: Just 2 percent of us are feeding the other 98 percent. The food on our tables often comes from hundreds if not thousands of miles away. Our heating and lighting are typically provided by power sources hundreds of miles away. For many people, even their tap water travels that far. Our factories produce sophisticated cars and electronics that have subcomponents that are sourced from three continents. The average American comes home from work each day to find that his refrigerator is well-stocked with food, his lights come on reliably, his telephone works, his tap gushes pure water, his toilet flushes, his paycheck has been automatically deposited to his bank, his garbage has been collected, his house is a comfortable seventy degrees, his televised entertainment is up and running 24/7, and his Internet connection is rock solid. We’ve built a very Big Machine that up until now has worked remarkably well, with just a few glitches. But that may not always be the case. As Napoleon found the hard way, long chains of supply and communication are fragile and vulnerable. Someday the Big Machine may grind to a halt.

Let me describe just one set of circumstances that could cause that to happen:

Imagine the greatest of all influenza pandemics, spread by casual contact—a virus so virulent that it kills more than half of the people infected. And imagine the advance of a disease so rapid that it makes its way around the globe in less than a week. (Isn’t modern jet air travel grand?) Consider that we have global news media that is so rabid for “hot” news that they can’t resist showing pictures of men in respirators, rubber gloves, goggles, and Tyvek coveralls wheeling gurneys out of houses, laden with body bags. These scenes will be repeated so many times that the majority of citizens decides “I’m not going to go to work tomorrow, or the day after, or in fact until after things get better.” But by not going to work, some important cogs will be missing from the Big Machine.

What will happen when the Big Machine is missing pieces? Orders won’t get processed at the Wal-Mart distribution center. The 18-wheelers won’t make deliveries to groceries stores. Gas stations will run out of fuel. Some policemen and firemen won’t show up for work, having decided that protecting their own families is their top priority. Power lines will get knocked down in windstorms, and there will be nobody to repair them. Crops will rot in the fields and orchards because there will be nobody to pick them, or transport them, or magically bake them into Pop-Tarts, or stock them on your supermarket shelf. The Big Machine will be broken.

Does this sound scary? Sure it does, and it should. The implications are huge. But it gets worse: The average suburban family has only about a week’s worth of food in their pantry. Let’s say the pandemic continues for weeks or months on end— what will they do when that food is gone and there is no reasonably immediate prospect of resupply? Supermarket shelves will be stripped bare. Faced with the prospect of staying home and starving or going out to meet Mr. Influenza, millions of Joe Americans will be forced to go out and “forage” for food. The first likely targets will be restaurants, stores, and food-distribution warehouses. As the crisis deepens, not a few “foragers” will soon transition to full-scale looting, taking the little that their neighbors have left. Next, they’ll move on to farms that are in close proximity to cities. A few looters will form gangs that will be highly mobile and well armed, ranging deeper and deeper into farmlands, running their vehicles on surreptitiously siphoned gasoline. Eventually their luck will run out and they will all die of the flu, or of lead poisoning. But before the looters are all dead they will do a tremendous amount of damage. You must be ready for a coming crisis. Your life and the lives of your loved ones will depend on it.

The New World and You

If and when the flu pandemic—or terrorist attack, or massive currency devaluation, or some other unthinkable crisis—occurs, things could turn very, very ugly all over the globe. Think through all of the implications of disruption of key portions of our modern technological infrastructure. You need to be able to provide water, food, heating, and lighting for your family. Ditto for law enforcement, since odds are that a pandemic will be YOYO (You’re on your own!) time.

You’ll need to get your beans, bullets, and Band-Aids squared away, pronto. Most important, you’ll need to be prepared to hunker down for three or four months, with minimal outside contact. That will take a lot of logistics, as well as plenty of cash on hand to pay your bills in the absence of a continuing income stream.

The Great Unraveling

As this book goes to press in the summer of 2009, we are witnessing a global economy in deep, deep trouble. Artificially low interest rates and artificially high residential real estate prices in many First World nations fueled a worldwide credit bubble. That bubble burst in 2007, and the full effects of the credit collapse are just now being felt. The resulting recession might turn into an economic depression that could last more than a decade.

The collapse of the credit default swaps (CDS) casino is indicative of much larger systemic risk. These exotic hedges are just one small part of the more than six-hundred-trillion-dollar global derivatives market. There are other derivatives that are just as dangerous. Veteran investor Warren Buffett called derivatives “a ticking time bomb.” I concur.

All of the recent bad economic news and the advent of the H1N1 flu call into question some of the basic assumptions about living in a modern industrialized society. We are forced to ask ourselves: How much stress can a society take before it begins to unravel? How safe will our cities be in another year, or in five years? Will supermarket shelves continue to be well stocked with such a tremendous abundance and such a wide assortment of goods?

With the information contained in this book, you can prepare yourself to live independently (“off the grid”) for an extended period of time. Self-sufficiency is the bottom line.

Please note that I make reference to some useful Web sites throughout this book. If you aren’t on the Internet, you can access these sites from free Internet terminals at most public libraries. If any of these URLs are obsolete, then do Web searches for their new URLs or comparable Web sites. For the sake of brevity, I have used the SnipURL.com service to truncate the longer URLs for Web sites mentioned in the book. These short URLs will make it quick and easy for you to reference the Web sites mentioned herein.

Also for the sake of brevity, I use a lot of acronyms in my writings. Each acronym is spelled out the first time it is used, and in this book’s glossary.

This book provides both a challenge and a response: Are you truly ready for TEOTWAWKI? If not, then herein is what you’ll need to know.

Read this book. Give it some prayer. Then get busy!

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (December 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141049332
• ISBN-13: 978-0141049335
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (268 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #273,773 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #66 in Books > Computers & Technology > Business & Culture > Future of Computing

More About the Author

James Wesley Rawles has been an enthusiastic survivalist since his teenage years. He is now a survivalist author and lecturer and the editor of www.SurvivalBlog.com. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Jose State University with minor degrees in military science, history, and military history. A former U.S. Army intelligence officer who held a Top Secret security clearance (with Special Background Investigation) and access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI), he was awarded Officer specialty 35A (tactical all-source intelligence officer), and the additional skill identifier 5M (electronic warfare officer). He achieved the rank of Captain, attended the Army NBC defense officer's course, as well as Northern Warfare School at Fort Greeley, Alaska.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1,125 of 1,156 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Read this before you buy, July 27, 2010

By 

Guitar Player "Michael T." (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times (Mass Market Paperback)

First let me start by saying that I seriously debated giving this book either 2 or 3 stars. It's somewhere in the middle in my mind. That said, you may love it, so don't let my review scare you off.

As part of my investigation into disaster preparedness, I read four books. I'd like to compare them here to help other customers.

The four books can be divided into two groups: practical guides, and the world's-gonna-end guides.

The first two books are related to what I'd call "more likely" events - hurricanes, flu pandemics, earthquakes, blackouts, food shortages, water contamination, etc. The two that I read are:

- Crisis Preparedness Handbook by Jack Spigareli

- Handbook to Practical Disaster Preparedness for the Family by Arthur Bradley

These two books are similar in their scope. Neither preaches doomsday preparations, and both have a wide range of good advice. Spigarelli's book focuses much more heavily on food storage, whereas Bradley's has a more well-rounded handling of many subjects, specifically targeting family preparation (including the special needs of children, pets, and the elderly). Comparing the two, I found Bradley's book to be more recent, easier to read, and more comprehensive. The quality of the publication is also better (numerous clear tables, examples, figures, personal observations, etc.). Spigarelli's book has been around for almost a decade and is highly regarded (definitely not slamming it), but feels a bit dated (text is smudged, figures are small, and some tables are hard to read). Not a bad book at all, just dated, and heavily focused on food storage (about 2/3 of the book). If you want to know about establishing a very large food plan (e.g. 1 year), and are curious about calorie counts and things like that, then definitely get Spigarelli's book. If you're more curious about things like the physical effects of radition, how to compare flashlights, or the effectiveness of different water purification methods, pick up Bradley's book. Just to be clear, both books are very good - probably the two best disaster preparedness books available.

The second set of books are targeted for more drastic, world-changing events - nuclear world war, asteroid hitting the planet, collapse of all government, doomsday stuff. The two books are:

- How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times by James Rawles

- When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need To Survive When Disaster Strikes by Cody Lundin

Again, these two books are similar. Both target extreme preparation - massive food and water stockpiles, getting off the electrical grid, living in bunkers, stocking weapons and bartering supplies, etc. Of the two, I found Lundin's book to offer more. First of all, it is much larger and has much more detailed content. Rawles' book is a low-quality trade publication that has zero figures or tables - think text only. The advice of Rawles book is also very general and not easy to do much with. Some of Lundin's advice is a bit questionable, and his cartoons are terribly annoying, but still the book contains much more information. That said, from what I know of Lundin and Rawles, both are the "real deal", so my review in no way is meant to reflect on them personally.

There is some significant overlap between the two types of books, but they are definitely different in their focus. My advice is that before buying a book, first decide whether you want to prepare for likely events or doomsday events. For me personally, I started with likely events first, then moved on to consider TEOTWAWKI scenarios. That process has worked well for me. If you want to prepare for both ends of the spectrum, I suggest purchasing Bradley's and Lundin's books. Can't go wrong with that. Better yet, if you have enough money, buy all four.

Hope this helps!

519 of 553 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Overall it's pretty OK, October 9, 2009

By 

adp113 - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times (Mass Market Paperback)

I have followed Rawles blog and his writings. This book is pretty OK, and here is why. The book does provoke a lot of thought, but.. Here is where it misses. The situation that Rawles describes, he has not lived through. I still have a rather normal life I have to live and for most of us, ditching it all and moving to the mountains is not a feasible option. He often cites needing a years worth of anything on hand, but what happens after that year? Do you really want to live in a place of constant death and destruction. He lists a lot of doomsday scenarios by where the ones who survive will not be the lucky ones.

I think the much more likely future is similar to what happened in Argentina or what has been slowly happening in South Africa.

So while next spring I will be tilling up a good part of yard for a garden, harvesting rain water, and buying and stocking in bulk. I will not be buying a GOOD location or a buying an old diesel junker truck to get there.

There is a lot you can learn from this book, but don't make it your sole reference. Where you live determines your survival strategy, there is no one size fits all approach.

1,441 of 1,554 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, but misses the boat, October 6, 2009

By 

Alberto Vargas (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times (Mass Market Paperback)

Rawles is a great non-fiction writer, and this is a well written book. However, it has some major faults:

- The book is for hard core survivalists only. It assumes complete and absolute break down of civilization. It does not deal with "simpler" short-term emergencies (tornado, fire, flood) that you can ride out living in your normal urban or suburban environment. The book is practically all about establishing a well-stocked remote rural retreat, which you defend tooth-and-nail against looters and invaders, while keeping the curtains down not to let them see your window lights.

- Rawles preaches to the choir, not to the uninitiated. If you are not familiar with the survivalist vernacular and have not read similar books / blogs, you will find this book a little jarring and over your head. In fact, Rawles often cross-references his fiction novel Patriots as supplementary guide. Speaking of preaching to the choir: all these five stars reviews which are highly rated as helpful - feel free to ignore the ones written before October 2. Given that this book started shipping on the last day of September and is not available for Kindle, there is simply no way people could have received and read the book before Friday October 2. Rawles is known for encouraging his blog readers to all buy the book on the same day to create a "bestseller" effect on Amazon, and this carries over to the reviews. So beware.

- Book is way too tiny and short for much useful learning. In fact, each chapter is basically a thoughtful intro followed by a list of items to get, with some quick facts (e.g. how long honey or wheat can be stored, where to buy the containers, etc). There is barely any attempt to teach survival attitude and skills - those are farmed out to other books or training courses. To the author's credit, he has plenty of great pointers to other books and courses. However, you are much better off going there in the first place.

- Rawles has a misanthropic, dog-eat-dog sense to his writing, both in this book and in Patriots. It is too much about hunkering down in your darkened bunker, eating MREs, and using plenty of ammo to keep the less fortunate souls away. While it is possible that a major event could end civilization as we know it, I do wish Rawles had a more positive tone and attitude, at least when trying to covert newcomers to his cause :)

There is one really big issue with hard core survivalism in general. If a truly massive global or nationwide disaster comes to pass, the likelihood of surviving it is low, no matter how well you prepare. Surviving a nuclear war or a mass epidemic is unlikely, and more about random chance than preparation. The survivors are bound to come together in sizable groups for strength and protection. If a well armed gang or ex-military unit converges on one of the Rawles-style rural retreats, game is over. So at the end of the day, at least to me, hard-core survivalism comes across as a militaristic make-believe game, mostly indulged by paranoid guys. Last but not least, unlike "soft-core" temporary disaster survival, what Rawles recommends is expensive and requires major lifestyle changes, which limits its appeal tremendously.

So, what's good about this book? The chapters on food storage and vehicles stand out. Also, if you are looking for a primer on surviving a major end-of-civilization disaster, this is a great starting point. To the author's credit, his survival blog has more readers than most daily newspapers, so he knows his stuff, whether you agree with him or not.