Tools for Survival: What You Need to Survive When You’re on Your Own Paperback – Illustrated, December 30, 2014

Suppose one day the music stops. We all live, more or less, as part of an intricately-connected web of human society. The water that comes out of the faucet when we open the tap depends (for the vast majority of people) on pumps powered by an electrical grid that spans a continent. So does the removal of sewage when you flush the toilet. The typical city in developed nations has only about three days' supply of food on hand in stores and local warehouses and depends upon a transportation infrastructure as well as computerised inventory and payment systems to function. This system has been optimised over decades to be extremely efficient, but at the same time it has become dangerously fragile against any perturbation. A financial crisis which disrupts just-in-time payments, a large-scale and protracted power outage due to a solar flare or EMP attack, disruption of data networks by malicious attacks, or social unrest can rapidly halt the flow of goods and services upon which hundreds of millions of people depend and rely upon without rarely giving a thought to what life might be like if one day they weren't there.The author, founder of the SurvivalBlog site, has addressed such scenarios in his  fiction , which is highly recommended. Here the focus is less speculative, and entirely factual and practical. What are the essential skills and tools one needs to survive in what amounts to a 19th century homestead? If the grid (in all senses) goes down, those who wish to survive the massive disruptions and chaos which will result may find themselves in the position of those on the American frontier in the 1870s: forced into self-reliance for all of the necessities of life, and compelled to use the simple, often manual, tools which their ancestors used—tools which can in many cases be fabricated and repaired on the homestead.The author does not assume a total collapse to the nineteenth century. He envisions that those who have prepared to ride out a discontinuity in civilisation will have equipped themselves with rudimentary solar electric power and electronic communication systems. But at the same time, people will be largely on their own when it comes to gardening, farming, food preservation, harvesting trees for firewood and lumber, first aid and dental care, self-defence, metalworking, and a multitude of other tasks. As always, the author stresses, it isn't the tools you have but rather the skills between your ears that determine whether you'll survive. You may have the most comprehensive medical kit imaginable, but if nobody knows how to stop the bleeding from a minor injury, disinfect the wound, and suture it, what today is a short trip to the emergency room might be life-threatening.Here is what I took away from this book. Certainly, you want to have on hand what you need to deal with immediate threats (for example, firefighting when the fire department does not respond, self-defence when there is no sheriff, a supply of water and food so you don't become a refugee if supplies are interrupted, and a knowledge of sanitation so you don't succumb to disease when the toilet doesn't flush). If you have skills in a particular area, for example, if you're a doctor, nurse, or emergency medical technician, by all means lay in a supply of what you need not just to help yourself and your family, but your neighbours. The same goes if you're a welder, carpenter, plumber, shoemaker, or smith. It just isn't reasonable, however, to expect any given family to acquire all the skills and tools (even if they could afford them, where would they put them?) to survive on their own. Far more important is to make the acquaintance of like-minded people in the vicinity who have the diverse set of skills required to survive together. The ability to build and maintain such a community may be the most important survival skill of all.This book contains a wealth of resources available on the Web (most presented as shortened URLs, not directly linked in the Kindle edition) and a great deal of wisdom about which I find little or nothing to disagree. For the most part the author uses quaint units like inches, pounds, and gallons, but he is writing for a mostly American audience. Please take to heart the safety warnings: it is very easy to kill or gravely injure yourself when woodworking, metal fabricating, welding, doing electrical work, or felling trees and processing lumber. If your goal is to survive and prosper whatever the future may bring, it can ruin your whole plan if you kill yourself acquiring the skills you need to do so.

Crawled gives you a lot of practical advice from someone who has been walking the walk! He is a great teacher

For those who do not/have not followed Rawles on his SurvivalBlog.com web site for any period of time, one of the precepts he espouses is "have a list of lists". The idea is a solid one--you a list of the lists of the things you have (or need) to prepare for bad times. It keeps you organized, since you know what you have, how much you have and where it is, or you know that you need it and have yet to acquire it. Tools For Survival is one of those lists--a list of the tools a family or a group of families would need to have in the event of a long term situation where outside help was not available. (Picture Hurricane Katrina, except help didn't show up for months instead of days.) The book is a comprehensive survey of all areas that would need to be addressed in such a situation.In this book Rawles goes over each major grouping of tools in short form. It isn't meant to be an in depth study of any of the area covered. For example, the archery section is roughly 13 pages long and covers what is known as "traditional archery" (basically, long and recurve bows). He covers very basic information on bows, arrows and how to use them. And here is one of the problems: outside resource materials are relegated to a relatively undifferentiated lump in an appendix. They aren't organized by chapter or subject, but by who suggested them. They would be far more helpful if attached in a paragraph or two at the end of each chapter. especially since chapters in this book can be read individually as needed.In another area, covering hand tools, Rawles makes a mistake that simply has me scratching my head. When saying, "You should have one of these", rather than giving the reader a manufacturer and a model number so we can find it ourselves no matter when we read the book, he relies on the SnipURL service, which is an ephemeral Internet-based URL shortening service. I've just checked over a dozen of the included URLs, and the majority are now defunct. The reader is now in the position of knowing that they need spare 120 VAC duplex outlets (for instance), but not knowing which ones the author suggests or why.These two issues combined they make the book less useful than it should be. For someone like me, who has some skills in every area the book addresses, this isn't an insurmountable problem. But for someone new to preparedness or someone who lacks skills in a given area, these problems will render the book far less useful than it should be. Rawles should address both issues in a future edition.

I jave been a fan of Rawles' work for some time. The book is a great starting point for homesteader as it discusses what you need t9 successfully bug-in in a small-holding setting. However many piece of information doesn't apply to us in Britain. The guns chapter and many other recommendations of particular makes and models that are very pricey or hard to find in the UK. To sum-up a relevant book but not all of it is applicable to us in the UK.

ya. Nuff said. Buy the book. I don't care about your thanks. Just buy it. You need it.

Rawls rocks.