Customer Reviews

Principles of Personal Defense

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you're looking for information from the best in his field, Jeff Cooper is the go-to guy. But DO NOT waste your money on this "book." This is a reissue of a 1989 training presentation that Cooper developed.

While his chapter headings are good (7 principles), each "chapter" is about 2-3 pages of large print. The entire "book" contains only 28 pages on which there is reading material, and many of those pages are less than half full. And Paladin Press, usually fairly competent, apparently never bothered to proofread this mess, with missing punctuation and errors such as "50-called" instead of "so-called."

I will now give you the entire book, in less than 100 words:

Here are the seven principles of successful personal defense:

- Alertness
- Decisiveness
- Aggressiveness
- Speed
- Coolness
- Ruthlessness
- Surprise

And the one take-home nugget of insight from this book:
All of these principles must be backed up by one's SKILL with a firearm, which requires training and practice. "YOU ARE NO MORE ARMED BECAUSE YOU ARE WEARING A PISTOL THAN YOU ARE A MUSICIAN BECAUSE YOU OWN A GUITAR." This one sentence inspired me to schedule some refresher training, and to set aside some additional time on a weekly basis to practice and maintain my skills.

OK, I just saved everyone about $10, plus s+h, plus the wait for it to arrive in the mail, plus the disappointment that you didn't buy one of Jeff's other books instead. Buy a box of JHPs with good stopping power, and think of me [fondly, NOT as the imaginary target!] the next time you go to the practice range.

I thought the content of the book was excellent. It breaks down in small portions, principles of self defense that a person can apply everyday in their life. No magic, just great common sense. My only gripe is that the book is so short. It literally takes about 1/2 hour to read.

O.K. The basic concepts of the book are fine. However, this is not a book. It is a magazine article in disguise. Half of the forty pages are pictures, blank, of half pages of text. Go to the library if you must read this, but save your money.

This is a hard copy of a presentation. If you took out the drawings and put on 8.5x11 paper, it would probaby be only a few pages long.

That said, it is excellent advice and worthy of keeping around to read on a regular basis. I plan on giving a copy to each of my teenage kids.

Too many reviewers of this book are entirely too worried about length and cost.

Jeff doesn't claim the concepts in this book to be original, nor does length have bearing on quality. The concepts in this book can be critical to survival. If our entire society thought and reacted in this manner, our crime rates would drop dramatically, and the overall society would be more polite and better behaved.

I have purchased and given away at least a dozen copies of "Principles". It has ALWAYS been money well spent. This book bears repeated reading.

This booklet is small but the principles it contains are huge in their relation to surviving real-world life-or-death altercations. Some reviewers state that these principles are common-sense and that people should known them instinctively. Unfortunately, this just isn't the case. The modern world has taken most people so far away from their common-sense survival instincts, that only books like this can get them back on track. Regardless of what other reviewers have to say, if you want the basic principles of the survival mind-set then you owe it to yourself to get this book.

Col Cooper's principles are fundamental to staying alive on the mean streets but they also form a critical set of skills for survival in today's business world. Many "modern" managers read Sun Tzu to learn how to defeat their corporate enemies. They would be better served by reading Col. Cooper.

If you're new to personal defense, you need to read... no you need to devour this text.

I assure you that once you ever face situations that Jeff Cooper describes, you will be equipped to handle them. This book literally could save your life.

Do not be a victim even when you're the victim!

If this book were longer, it would be even better but listen... if it were longer, fewer people would read it. It would sit on shelves for "one of these days" and then it might be too late.

I do not know Jeff Cooper but I have read one other book of his and I am so very greatly impressed. He teaches so much more than defense in his writings, although for this jewel, it's primary reason for being is to teach you to protect yourself.

Other reviewers have noted, and criticized, this text for it's common sense principals and it's austere presentation. It is true that there is nothing presented in this book that has not been contemplated by every gun owner or martial artist with at least a room temperature IQ. I myself read this book during my lunch-hour one day and can say that I didn't come away with anything new. But, I think that the critics are missing the point. Mr. Cooper's intention was not to reveal some profound secret, but to provoke though on the topic of self-defense. In this respect the book is very good. After reading this I found myself questioning how prepared I was to defend myself and what I could do to be more attentive in these matters. If this was your intention Mr. Cooper then well done!

Two guys tried to assault me, as I was walking home one night. I was able to escape, unharmed, because I was applying principles I'd recently learned from this book.

Thanks be to God who delivered me, and the means deliverance, which was Mr Cooper's book!