The Modern Survival Manual

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1. hgaApr 2016
   Here's my recommendations from the classic era of survivalism (mid-late-70s through the '80s):

   Nuclear War Survival Skills, get a PDF to see if it's interesting to you (e.g. http://www.oism.org/nwss/), get the green softcover for when the lights go out and for accurate patterns for the Kearny Fallout Meter: http://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-War-Survival-Skills-Expanded/d... (it says something about the times that Amazon is keeping it in stock, they didn't a few years ago) or from the publisher (previous link).

   This is the bible of expedient nuclear war survival, everything from quick to build shelters to sprouting wheat to avoid vitamin deficiency diseases, based on many years of serious research at Oak Ridge, and tested, they'd go so far as to hand a copy of shelter plans to average American families, and then videotape them following the plan, and improve the design based on that. Vs. too many of those classic Civil Defense shelter plans drawn up by bureaucrats in the Beltway that would kill their inhabitants due to too little ventilation to remove heat and humidity.

   Maybe then check out his recently published Jungle Snafus ... and Remedies, his hardcore work on survival started in WWII, and he started thinking about nuclear war survival in the mid-late '30s (sic) after learning about the idea of nuclear weapons while at Princeton (quite a few people thought and wrote about it before the details were worked out after E=mc^2 and all that, see e.g. the SF of the pre-end of WWII era).

   Then Bruce Clayton's magnum opus, Life After Doomsday, get the Dial Press paperback which has annotations and comments made after the first edition: http://www.amazon.com/Life-after-doomsday-survivalist-disast... And perhaps check out some of his other works, the food for others concept was not, as I recall, originally published in Thinking About Survival http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-About-Survival-Bruce-Clayton/... but you'll find it there (probably originally published in an issue of the hard to find Mel Tappan Personal Survival Letter).

   The other two major intellectuals of the era were Jerry Pournelle, see his two relevant novels coauthored with Larry Niven, Lucifer's Hammer and Footfall, and Mel Tappan, start with his Tappan on Survival: http://www.amazon.com/Tappan-Survival-Mel/dp/1581605099/

   The obscure and now very expensive used Bad Times Primer by C. G. Cobb had insighs, especially on survival on a budget, I didn't find anywhere else at the time (there is of course the new wave of "prepper" thought and literature that's no doubt worth checking out that might cover things like that): http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Times-Primer-Complete-Survival/dp/...

   Finally, Total Resistance http://www.amazon.com/Total-Resistance-H-Von-Dach/dp/0873640... is the manual on sane armed resistance and such, commissioned by the Swiss Non-commissioned Officer's Association, very Swiss vs. USSR invasion and '50s-ish, it's not written by wild eye idiots. Much updating and thought is required, of course, but I would start with that foundation, and for best reading quality, track down the original hardback, I think the publisher reproduced the paperback edition from it.

   For modern works, I'll only note The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Survival-Manual-Surviving-Econo... since it's written from the author's experience of a less than total collapse in Argentina. See also people's writeups of the much worse collapse and warfare in post-Cold War Yugoslavia.

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2. digitalengineerFeb 2014
   Escaping to the country isn't a good plan. During the financial crisis of 2008 I thought it be a good idea to read about the financial crisis of Argentina during the 2001 crash and what it ment to students/poor people, the middle class in "Surviving Argentina". In short: "On the country-side" no one can hear you scream. A lot of sh*t went down. The books a good read, I even took up the some of the advice and now no longer need lenses or glasses with build-in contact-lenses inside my eye. My house is strengtened as well, and I studied Krav Maga for a few years. Always nice to know a little bit. I liked the first lesson: If you can walk away out of a situation, do it and screw your "honor".

   Book: (no affiliate links) http://www.amazon.com/The-Modern-Survival-Manual-Surviving/d...

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3. iisan7May 2023
   Thanks for mentioning this. A quick search turned up this book, is it the right one? https://archive.org/details/modernsurvivalma0000agui. Fernando Aguirre, 2009. The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse.

   It would be really interesting to compare/contrast his account from others from Ukraine, Syria, the Balkans. What I hear in your comment is that the advice you heard was about having weapons for a strong defensive posture rather than to be used offensively. I guess the strength of both communities and gangs is in their size, they'll win out over the lone wolf fantasy.

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4. hgaApr 2016
   Those are excellent, and presumably are included in his book: http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Survival-Manual-Surviving-Econo... (which I've bought but not yet read).
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