Book Review -- Without Rule of Law

I haven't done a book review here before, but this one is interesting and useful, so I thought I would give it a shot. Let me know if you would like me to follow a different format.

Book: Without Rule of Law: Advanced Skills to Help You Survive by "Joe Nobody" (190 pages; 2012). (Amazon link here) (Barnes & Noble link here).

Overview: This book covers the skills and ideas related to scavenging following a wide-spread disaster resulting in the loss of the rule of law. About 1/4 of the book covers selecting, prioritizing, and training with your equipment, with special chapters on "the survival net" (using a net for various purposes) and weapons. The author next covers hiding, evasion and infiltration. The final portion of the book discuses specific tactics of scavenging, including a chapter on working in teams. While the book focuses on the arch-typical "survivalist," it has a lot of potential for the person looking to survive a zombie pandemic.

Impressions:  The focus of the book is to scavenge food, medicine, and other essentials that has been abandoned from unoccupied buildings and facilities, after a major disaster in what may be hostile territory.

The author writes the book from the perspective of someone living in a rural retreat location, but, for one reason or another, needs to replenish food, medicine, or other critical supplies in circumstances where government and other socio-economic systems have ceased to function. In other words, the world has gone to pot, there is no government, and you need to find a nice warehouse filled with food, medicine, or whatever other goodies needed for your survival.

The author candidly admits in the book that there is going to be a limited time frame in which to engage in productive scavenging. In fact, he acknowledges and assumes that the "easy pickin's" are already gone, and that you will be scavenging secondary, less well known, sources of foods and medicines such as individual doctors offices, office break rooms, rail road cars, etc. Even those sources will "dry up" due to others scavenging.

My impression of the book is positive. It is well written and edited. For someone who enjoyed "Mad Max" and similar post-apocalypse stories as a kid, it is actually an entertaining read. But it has a lot of useful information on operating alone, using MOLLE equipment, using a camouflage net for everything from dragging supplies to use as a hammock.

Where I would fault the author is that he doesn't give enough specifics on some topics. For instance, he mentions the importance of learning military hand-signals when working in a group, but doesn't illustrate any of the hand signals. The book Light Infantry Tactics for Small Teams has an excellent description of hand signals, and there are some sources on the web. If you think that you would be operating in a small team while scavenging, I would recommend also purchasing the Light Infantry Tactics for Small Teams to use in conjunction with this book. And practice the hand signals and movement techniques.

Another area that I would like to have had more information is actual instructions on how to penetrate the doors to a building or getting through other barriers.

Even ignoring the scavenging portion of the book, it does offer a lot of tips and instructions for escape and evasion, camouflage and hiding, that could be useful by itself.

The book has obvious application to a zombie apocalypse. First, post zombie apocalypse, survivors may need to move around to avoid zombie hordes, making it difficult to operate from a fixed location. You may end up taking in survivors that have little or no supplies and will overtax what you have stored. Unusual circumstances will crop up where you may need supplies that you did not originally plan on. Most of all, unlike more "conventional" disaster, a zombie apocalypse will be sudden enough that there should still be plenty of materials to scavenge. Thus, techniques in this book would be invaluable. Just don't be surprised if gun-play, or bashing your way into a warehouse with a sledge hammer, attracts a few of the undead.