Book Review: "Surviving a Global Disaster" by Daniel Wilson

(Source)

Book: Surviving a Global Disaster by Daniel Wilson.

Overview: A survival guide for the unprepared--or, more accurately, those who didn't bother to put aside preparations. The first half of the book is about how and what to loot when disaster strikes. It then moves into fleeing the city and finding an abandoned vacation home or cabin to live in (yes, stealing your survival retreat as well). It then goes into raising food and hunting or trapping game and some other essential survival skills. And finally, it briefly covers passing your knowledge on to children and attitudes toward self defense.

For basic survival gear, he advises that you first loot a sporting goods store, focusing on a firearm or two (and ammunition), a knife or two, and all the fishing lines and hooks as you can get your hands on; a wind-up or crank charged radio; backpacks; and fire starting rods (the author calls them flint sticks, but later in the book it is clear he is referring to magnesium firestarters and fero sticks); and water purification equipment. Then he recommends hitting a small pharmacy and grabbing all the antibiotics you can get your hands on, painkillers (OTC or prescription), vitamins, and baby formula. Then a hardware/home improvement store for seeds (lots of seeds), and basic hand tools. He also suggests hitting an auto parts store for batteries if you have the time.

After you have bugged out to your destination, the author discusses basic survival skills. He recommends that firearms be limited to self-defense, and that you rely on primitive weapons, snares, etc., for hunting. He also recommends getting lots of firewood and planting some of your seeds if it is the growing season. He describes the basics of processing large and small game, lighting a fire, and few other survival skills.

His recommendations toward self defense are to set up trip alarms or booby traps, tell anyone that comes to your cabin to beat it, and be ready to shoot first.

Impressions: This is a very different type of survival book because it espouses survival by looting instead of making your own preparations. Obviously, because it focuses on looting supplies and becoming a squatter in someone else's property, this book is intended for an actual global disaster resulting in the collapse of civilization, not a local or regional disaster. Also, although the author suggests at the beginning of the book that this is for someone that has not prepared, he actually assumes that you have scouted out an area for your bug-out destination, if not a particular cabin or home to appropriate. He discusses options as to vehicles and other equipment that would require planning and forethought. So the book is not really for the unprepared, but those who plan is to loot and steal what they need.

Turning to the content, there are a few fatal flaws.

First, although I've never looted, I don't know if it will be as easy as the author suggests. I suspect that in a true apocalyptic disaster, having to drive to various stores to loot is merely going to expose you to extreme danger from other looters. The author doesn't seem to believe--or at least doesn't address--that other looters may be perfectly willing to kill you for the water filter, or seeds, or medicine you have stolen. He suggests that you will be able to make several trips into a business, while storing your loot in your car between trips.

The author's fire starting recommendations are poorly thought out--taking a fire starter over matches or lighters? Again, the author is either ignorant or misleading about how difficult it can be to start a fire with some of the fire starting tools without practice. He also gives the impression that firestarters will last indefinitely.

The author may be experienced at hunting, but he is unrealistic about how easy it is to harvest game with primitive weapons and snares.

However, the fundamental problem with the author's plan, and one that the author skips over, is having sufficient food until you become expert enough to trap or use primitive weapons to harvest game, and your garden produces crops. This, of course, is where food storage comes in. Having several months or a year's worth of stored food is what would hopefully get you through this period. If you were to follow the author's suggestion, you would starve, unless--and this is perhaps the unspoken assumption in the book--you loot and steal food until you can grow your crops and harvest game.

I picked this up on the Kindle during a time it was being offered for free. It's regular price is $2.99. It was worth the time to read because it was interesting and flowed well. But I don't believe that it useful enough to pay the full price. This book represents one person's survival plan, but has fatal gaps and glosses over a lot of information needed to survive a disaster.