Customer Reviews

SAS Survival Handbook: How to Survive in the Wild, in Any Climate, on Land or at Sea

5 star:		(117)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The "SAS Survival Handbook" is the most comprehensive survival handbook I have ever seen. Most books have some basic advice (the importance of the correct mental attitude, finding water and shelter, etc.), a handful of edible plants, and a couple of ways to start a fire. While this book covers all those areas, it also has sections on camp craft, determining directions, rescue signals, dealing with different climates and terrains, reading clouds for weather prediction, and many others. A good example of the thoroughness of the coverage would be the food section. It covers your energy needs and how they are met from various foods, testing unknown plants in desperate situations, plants to avoid, identification of plants, using animals for food, extensive and detailed trapping mechanisms, fishing, gutting and cleaning, and other advice. The number, types, and detail on the various traps are amazing. I've never seen so many different designs. It includes several that I have not seen anywhere else before. I would consider this the authoritative text on survival skills in the wild and give it the highest recommendation for anyone interested in survival techniques.

I'll probably never be trapped behind enemy lives and dependent upon catching small mammals and selecting local edible plants for survival, but its nice to have a nifty, easy-to-carry guide just in case.

Wiseman's SAS Survival handbook is an excellent companion for hikers, campers and into-the-wilderness junkies. This book is extremely well written with easy to understand illustrations and excellent organization. There are color plates for easy identification of plants and animals to eat/avoid/use-as-medicine. This book has it all, or at least all I can think of. There are sections on camping, hiking, supplies, compass skills, shelter making, first aid, transport, catching and preparing animals and locating local edible foods, tool making, fishing, hunting, knot tying, general survival in different climates and environments and more.

The best part of this book is by far its terrific approachability. It is written for the layman and is very easy to understand. Either as an outdoor accomplice or a handy at home preparedness guide, this is a book to get and know.

This is truly an important book for everyone to read at least once in their life. Given, most people will never end up in a situation where skills described in the SAS Survival Book will be required, but don't be cocky...learn the skills from this book and rest easy knowing that you have the background knowledge to make it in the outdoors without modern conveniences. This book covers it all -forest, desert, ocean, island, artic/arctic, mountain, tropical, temperate- you name it, this book will get through the hard times with no problem. This book HAS saved lives in the past, but many have also died in unexpected situations where the knowledge found in these pages could have saved them. I don't think anyone wants to end up classified in the latter. Get the SAS Survival Guide and read up. Someday you may look back at purchasing this book and realize it was the most important decision you ever made in your life!

Wiseman's venerable SAS Survival Handbook has been around for over 20 years at this point & keeps getting reprinted regularly. Yet every time I look at a copy, it seems to be an exact reprint of the original - same diagrams, same chapters, and (sadly) the same errors.
Wiseman tries to write a comprehensive, world-wide, all-season survival manual & he's successful to a degree. Realistically, given the difficulty of effectively covering all the topics adequately, we should stop trying to buy/write/publish such comprehensive 'encyclopedias' & focus on excellent regional manuals.

As an outdoor survival instructor in western Canada I've always recommended my students get the small pocket editions as a worthwhile addition to their library - but that was after I'd pointed out some of the glaring weaknesses in this book such as:

1) In trying to be a do-all book, Wiseman (and other authors in other books) winds up mentioning a plethora of survival skills, but with the more primitive skills he gives such a cursory overview that I believe no novice reader could ever successfully implement such techniques in their backyard, let alone in a survival emergency. Specifically, sections such as bow-drill fire making, making bows & arrows, and making stone tools are all about one column (half page) in length. No one without previous experience is going to have any success with those techniques nor are those already competent going to learn anything new.

2) The ridiculous spear thrower (atlatl) design that has graced every edition of this book is completely inefficient & not found anywhere in the world wide archeological record of spear-thrower designs. Anyone w/ a modicum of physical coordination, athletic ability or common sense understanding of physics will immediately recognize this awkward design will add very little (if any) performance increase to casting the dart. Actually, his design does show up in one other place... the caveman fantasy movie "Quest For Fire"... yes, really.

3) The most dangerous error is in the knot tying section. The Sheet Bend illustration (a safe & sturdy method of joining 2 ropes, even of differing diameters) is completely WRONG. In the diagram, the thinner black rope does not drop down through the bight in the larger white rope, but merely weaves under itself & stays on the same side. The method shown slips into what's called a Thief Knot... completely unstable & unsafe.
Do I think John Wiseman doesn't know how to really tie a sheet bend properly? Not really, I'm just annoyed that he or the publisher have never corrected a dangerous error in the illustration.
NOTE: in the latest (5th) version, the "Revised Edition," from Harper Publishing (March 2009) I've noticed that the sheetbend illustration has finally been corrected. All the other content remains basically identical to the best of my knowledge (including the ridiculous spear-thrower & other minimalist primitive technology). Too bad it took 5 editions over 20 years to get a primary knot correct, but at least it is now.

I think this book is very good for certain situations, but I feel that it does not meet the needs of most average folks in case of major catastrophy.

I would recommend Ron Foster's practical guide for all scenarios. Since he works in the field of emergency response, he has the most up to date and useful methods of urban and rural survival.

If you seriously want to learn more than "how to live off the land" short term, I would highly recommend Mr. Foster's publication, "The Rural Ranger: A Suburban Manual & Field Guide of Traps and Snares for Food and Survival".

I know how to live off the land if one can even get to such a ideal location, but hunger, thirst and the elements will wear out the millions of people trying to vacate their huge cities all at once.

This book gives one a fighting chance no matter what your skills are or where you live.

Seriously,
David Highum

I just finished writing a review of "The Complete Wilderness Training Book" and had recommended Lofty Wiseman's book, but then I realized that I hadn't reviewed that book. Since it is one of my favorite books on the subject, let me now correct that oversight.
I just counted the outdoor skills books in my personal library-138. About half deal with survival. Lofty Wiseman's book is the best general survival book I've found. Being the survival instructor for the SAS is serious cred. SpecOps soldiers, along with military pilots and professional explorers, are right at the top of the list of people who are very likely to need advanced survival skills. This book is extremely down to earth and realistic. A broad range of subjects covered here, and plenty of detail on each subject. If I had to go and live off the land with only 5 minutes' notice, this is the book I'd grab if I had to choose just one.

this book explains everything! after reading it there is nothing i don't know how to do. it covers shelter,food,clothing, tools,ropes and knots and tons of other stuff one need to know to survive.i reccomend it to anyone who likes the outdoors.

I don't understand the rave reviews on this book. For one, it tries to do too many things (badly) instead of concentrating on solid wilderness survival. I wanted to like it, but it has inconcistincies all over. It tries to cover (very badly...main advice "wear protective gear full body") even chemical attacks, flood, drought, etc. (where's the section on locust, and frogs?)
Seriously, they oversimplify complex things, that in my opinion have ZERO chance of working in the field (bolero? throwing stick?) and terrible illustrations that don't illustrate. Spear launcher, sheesh. a guy would die out there trying these things.
It is incomplete in it's advice (snares...you gotta know how to get your scent off of it) he should have written a whole chapter on snares, but explained in detail the theory, what you can expect to catch, simple but well explained snare types (keep it down to a few, but explain them well) and skinning instructions.

Seriously, this book is dangerously lacking in the right kind of information.

Plus instead of logically splitting up all info (like WATER...explain the basics common to all needs, but in the same chapter explain differences in arid, temperate, arctic, etc.)

For me it was a total waste of money.
I guess I could use it for kindling, or fire starting.

This book is by far and away the best survival manual I have seen.
From having a basic survival kit, through to survival in different climates and conditions, through to creating camps, tools and traps, it is a wealth of information.
With many illustrations, including colour illustrations of plants and wildlife from different regions, the book is accessible and easy to read.
Like the SAS themselves, there is much knowledge contained within this book that could applied to many different situations, and so it is a very enjoyable book to read, too.
With even a section on disaster management, both man-made and natural, this would have to stand as one of the most practical books that anyone could own for preparedness.
If you are a camper, a hiker or just a long-distance traveller or backpacker, it could also have a multitude of uses.
When it comes down to it, I think this book could easily make the difference to whether you live or die in a survival situation and it could give you a fighting chance when all hope seems lost.

This survival book is rivaled by few others. It covers basically everything you would need to know should you find yourself out in the wilds without help from civilization. The color illustrations are a great reference and the book also includes some useful information on coping with domestic survival situations. The main drawback to the book is that for Americans (like me) it is written in British style English using many vocabulary words which most folks who learned American English would have a hard time with. Of course, this is understandable given that the author is British and served with Britian's SAS. There are certain areas which could use some more thorough explaining, atlhough for its length, this book is pretty detailed. All in all, it is worth every penny, baht or pound you would spend on it and should be read by anybody who ventures outdoors. Not only is it informative, but it's also entertaining as the author does throw in some humor of his own. My hat is off to to the author! A great book!