Description
Product Description
The ultimate guide that will teach you how to prepare for disaster—including how to stock your shelves, secure your home, and more.
Disruptive elections. A pandemic. Global financial collapse. A terrorist attack. A natural catastrophe. All it takes is one event to disrupt our way of life.We could find ourselves facing myriad serious problems from massive unemployment to a food shortage to an infrastructure failure that cuts off our power or water supply. If something terrible happens, we won't be able to rely on the government or our communities. We'll have to take care of ourselves.
In How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, James Rawles, founder of SurvivalBlog.com, clearly explains everything you need to know to protect yourself and your family in the event of a disaster—from radical currency devaluation to a nuclear threat to a hurricane. Rawles shares essential tactics and techniques for surviving completely on your own, including how much food is enough, how to filter rainwater, how to protect your money, which seeds to buy for your garden, why goats are a smart choice for livestock, and how to secure your home.
Review
“The preppers' bible.”—Jim Forsyth, The Chicago Tribune
“Civilization is still standing now, but that does not mean it always will… We'd better know what to do in the event of a deadly viral pandemic, major asteroid strike, unprecedented hyperinflationary (or deflationary) economic depression, third World War, or any other global disaster, Rawles argues. He spells out all the hazards that we might face in a post-disaster society: looting, armed violence, food shortages, etc. Then he lays out steps we can take now, such as taking survival- training courses, designing shelters, and stocking them with necessary supplies. He even offers a chapter on disaster-proof financial security: savvy investments to make now, earning income in the midst of a major recession, and bartering in the wake of a true disaster.”—The Futurist
About the Author
James Wesley, Rawles is the founder of SurvivalBlog.com. A former U.S. Army Intelligence officer and technical writer, he is the author of the novel Patriots.
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
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