|
| 
 enlarge | Authors: Mark Elbroch, Michael Pewtherer
Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $8.27
You Save: $8.68 (51%)
New (38) Used (12) from $8.27
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 217729
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0071453318
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.69
EAN: 9780071453318
ASIN: 0071453318
Publication Date: April 13, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Good Philosophy - Not so Good Advice November 10, 2007
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
As a person who has been camping outside since he was eight in all types of weather, I found this book strange and interesting. Interesting in the intellectual sense of the term -- here are two city slickers in middle life getting the wilderness religion. Strange in the sense that almost all of that they do, could not be classified as survival. If you are looking at this book as an interesting way to go "wild in an semi--rural area" and learn a few interesting tricks. Most of them better practised in your garage (since you would be dead from starvation and most certainly hypothermia by the time you got to use them). Then this is an interesting book. It should be titled differently -- perhaps "Weekend Wilderness for the Urban Man" of "50 Projects for You to Make by Hand on a Desert Isle Assuming You have Unlimited Food, Good Shelter and Water" -- do not get me wrong... there are a lot of great ideas here, and the book is very worthy... but it's not Survival.
This book should be read more for its musings on man's place in modern society and his relationship to the land. In this sense the first-person accounts are very good and unique to this style of writing -- one does wonder what it would be like to run about the leafy (from what I can tell largely close urban) wilderness and try to "survive."
There authors took minimum tools and clothes and minimalist attitudes in this backyard, road-crossed "wilderness" and tried to live. Many of the things they did, the experiences they gained are worthy ideals and even more interesting for anyone contemplating such an adventure experience.
The problem with the book is simply this: If you were actually in a survival situation there is little that this book can teach you on immediate survival such as thwarting hypothermia, finding your way out and attracting attention. The latter two endevours the authors tried to avoid as part of their experiences -- which is completely fine. But the danger is of course that someone (largely some urban refugee with little practical experience, deludes themselves into thinking that this book actually "teaches" survival. It is does not... it teaches a person how to have a sorth of new-age wilderness experience.
If you were to use this book as the basis of survival in a wet and cold environment you would be dead in hours! Period. In fairness to the authors, that is not the purpose of this book, but with a title such as "Wilderness Survival" it is very likely the purpose of its readers.
The most glaring example is the oft-cited debris hut. To anyone that has ever built one we all know that these only work in environments that are largely dry and above freezing. Try building a debris hut on the Olympic Pennisula in the middle of November and you will quickly realise that these shelters get wet in hours and remain waterlogged for days and weeks. Inside the book our heroes actually have to take shelter in an older building when they are drowned out of their debris huts. Other survival huts are not mentioned. Nor is any cold-weather survival at all. As any person can tell you, survival outside of the desert (and even in a desert) IS cold-weather survival. ( I should note that I have been building a variety of shelters since about eight. I actually abandoned a debris hut when lost overnight -- it as leaking very badly, when I was 13 and managed to find that most rare of things on the Canadian Pacific Coast -- a dry spot under a tree).
Although the instructions on building tools and clothes are good, these are secondary to surviving, and should be noted as such. As for stalking the animals mentioned in this book. I can believe large parts of it... other parts smack of fanciful invention -- like following the black bears into the forest... Maybe I just did not live in the forest long enough to acquire a stench of forest normality that calmed the aninmals... but I have never seen nor heard of animals behaving in some of the ways they are described in this book.
Be all that as it may I enjoyed this book through numerous bathroom reads and also it gave me ideas of my own... but I will leave the debris hut behind. It is a book to be used in conjunction with more practical survival guides -- best of course being that of the world's most proficient special forces in the world -- "The SAS Survival Manual."
 An Authentic Account September 25, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed reading this book. Some of the transformations that Mark went through, and insights he shared, during his 46 day wilderness survival experience will always stick with me. I got the feeling he was trying to be as honest as anyone could be about his experience. Especially the part about coming to the deep realization that he was an animal playing by the same rules that all other nonhumans have to follow in the biological community.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in wilderness surival, the living community, or seeking insight into the question what are role is on this planet.
Great Book, Great Story August 16, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is a great book that tells a great story of wilderness survival. Mark has some of the best field guides and this book can be added right along side those. Being that this is told from first person makes it that much more intersting. Anyone into wilderness survival, tracking, and primitve skills, this book is a must.
An easy and educational read August 9, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
A first hand personal account of living off the land. This book captivated me more than any spy novel.
 Worth the read August 3, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I enjoyed reading Wilderness Survival by Elbroch. He writes in an style that is easy to follow and fun to read. If you like to camp at all, I'd certainly recommend reading the book.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
