The Personal Security Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Protecting Your Home and Family [Paperback]

Christopher McNab (Author), Joanna Rabiger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2003

For most people, the art of survival is all about how to cope when deprived of the comforts of home--finding food and building shelter in the wilderness, for instance--but there is a quite different set of survival skills required for city living. With danger seeming to lurk around every street corner, coping with the potential threats of the world's cities can pose a real challenge to the uninitiated.

The Personal Security Handbook is an informative guide to overcoming the challenges of urban living, offering the reader a variety of tips and advice on how to be streetwise and overcome everyday problems--including how to prevent muggings and avoid confrontations, how to unlock your house and car without keys, how to escape a burning building, how to negotiate public transport, road safety measures, and being alert to terrorist activities.
Complete with more than 120 black-and-white illustrations that complement the text, this book is the perfect companion to surviving city life, whether you are a seasoned urban dweller or merely a day visitor.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

For most people, the art of survival is all about how to cope when deprived of the comforts of home - finding food and building shelter in the wilderness, for instance - but there is quite a different set of survival skills required for city living. With danger seeming to lurk around every street corner, coping with the potential threats of the world's cities can pose a real challenge to the uninitiated.
The Personal Security Handbook is an informative guide to overcoming the challenges of urban living, offering the reader a variety of tips and advice on how to be streetwise and overcome everyday problems - including how to prevent muggings and avoid confrontations, how to unlock your house and car without keys, how to escape a burning building, how to negotiate public transport, road safety measures, and being alert to terrorist activities.
Complete with more than 120 black-and-white illustrations that complement the text, this book is the perfect companion to surviving city life, whether you are a seasoned urban dweller or merely a day visitor.

About the Author

DR. CHRIS MCNAB has written and edited numerous books, including Living Off the Land (page 140) and The SAS Mental Endurance Handbook (page 209) on military history and the world's elite military forces, such as the US Marines, British Royal Marines, and British Special Forces.

JOANNA RABIGER is a freelance writer and documentary film editor living in Austin, Texas.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Lyons Press; 1st edition (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585748315
• ISBN-13: 978-1585748310
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,178,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For countries with NO firearms ownership, January 15, 2010

By 

C. W. Sayre - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Personal Security Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Protecting Your Home and Family (Paperback)

The "Personal Security Handbook" is a very mixed bag for people who live in the United States: While it is a very adequate unarmed self-defense book, with many good safety and general security pointers, some of the advice presented would be extremely alien to anyone who lives in a country where private ownership of firearms is allowed, and where you are also permitted to defend yourself within your own home.

As an example, the "Personal Security Handbook's" main solution as to how a home owner, with a family, should respond to a burglary or home invasion (CAPS are mine, for emphasis):

"If ... you hear someone breaking in, LEAVE YOUR HOME, safely if you can, alerting other family members IF POSSIBLE, then call the police as soon as possible from a safe distance or the neighbors home".

In other words, the book not only counsels you to NOT defend your last bastion -- your very own home -- with a firearm against a intruder (whether that weapon is actually legally discharged or merely used to threaten), but if you can't reach your own wife and children, then you are told to LEAVE THEM to the tender -- and not so tender -- mercies of the criminal burglar/home invader(s). Wow, that kind of "valuable" advice would have never even occurred to me: run out on my entire family, and from my very own home.

Or, the book also advises, if you are actually cornered in your house by the home invader, to simply "tell the intruder that all you want to do is leave the house". In other words, basically pleading for mercy from someone with a possible sociopathic criminal mentality. Hmmm, I wonder how that could turn out....

Next, the author quotes completely inaccurate information on United States firearm death statistics, which makes me wonder about all of the other statistics he quotes in his book: "In the United States, around 48,000 people are killed every year by firearms. The majority of those are killed in firearm ACCIDENTS."

However, his "statistic" is completely incorrect. In fact, for the year 2006 in the United States, there were 16,883 SUICIDES from firearms; 642 ACCIDENTS by firearms; and 12,791 HOMICIDES by firearms (homicides that were usually drug and criminal related; i.e, criminal vs. criminal). [Statistics obtained from: University of Utah (Health Sciences)].

Therefore, I find that this book would be extremely valuable for those who live in England, Australia, Japan, or any other country where a citizen is not free to own firearms, or for those persons in the United States who choose not to possess, or are not allowed to possess, a firearm to legally defend their own home and their precious family.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Overrated, March 25, 2009

By 

Bunny (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Personal Security Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Protecting Your Home and Family (Paperback)

There are better books out there than this one, for example Jim Grover's Books. Louis Awerbuck has an excellent video on the subject I think called Safe at Home. This book is more a bunch of tidbits than a real help.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good friend with advice for every situation, September 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Personal Security Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Protecting Your Home and Family (Paperback)

When I saw the title of this book, I thought it would make me even more scared than I already felt about moving to the big city. My little sister gave me it as a present when I left home to study. But it turns out to be full of useful advice, sensible and well-written. It feels like a good friend talking -- a good friend who just happens to know an awful lot about how to deal with muggers and how break into your home if you lock yourself out. A good friend to have, in fact.