Hawke's Green Beret Survival Manual: Essential Strategies For: Shelter and Water, Food and Fire, Tools and Medicine, Navigation and Signa Paperback – October 2, 2012

This is amazing. Covers so many things other survival books don't. He gives details on all subjects that are neglected by others. The illustrations are not actual pictures but are graphics that help you see exactly what he is talking about. This is a must buy for the survival geek. So much more detail than others provide, this book is thick! It is put together like a reference guide, very easy to find info on any given subject, I love how this book is organized. His opening chapter on "Psychology of Survival" has amazing insights and is information many may not have thought of. He has great info in his "fire" chapter about starting fires and his insights on starting fires with sticks and the type of wood needed (hardwood, softwood) could save you hours of frustration if you need to apply these skills to save your life. He also has great info on traps in his "food" chapter. Ways to trap fish and make other tools that I haven't seen elsewhere, and I like to study it all.I must also mention he has great info on starting methods that are easy to remember and very practical. I thought I knew all the ways to start a fire but he has some new ones and yet the philosophy he has is so simple that it is easy to remember and apply.This book really does cover about everything and has details and explanations you wont find elsewhere and in a way that is easy to understand and easy to read. I seriously read this huge book in a week. So much easier than others in the same genre. I highly recommend this book, it will give you great information and will be resource easy to go back into and find specifics as you may need.If I needed one survival book ( and I have many) this book is where I would start. Its a killer investment and a great value.

While this book had a lot of content that you can find elsewhere, it made a point to debunk a number of "this is what to do" things - and explained WHY. I liked that. There was also an introductory section that stressed the importance of a positive mental attitude. The author is honest and sometimes humorous about the subject matter; for example, before the section on eating insects he explains that you need to know about it, if the options are that or starve. Simple, correct, yet amusingly worded. Good book on survival and the right mindset.

The first thing you need to know about this book is the perspective the author takes on what survival is: he basically is talking about situations where you unexpectedly find yourself out of range of help, and where furthermore you don't have the means to survive readily available (meaning you didn't come prepared with food, shelter, tools, etc). This book is not for the "survivalist" - someone who puts themselves in a difficult situation on purpose, or someone who is preparing for difficult survival conditions. The bulk of the book would most readily apply to the survivor of a vehicle crash in a remote area.The author makes the point early and often that surviving is about mindset, and he constantly reminds you to stay alert, positive, busy and willful. Beyond that, he covers most of the basics that would apply to someone thrust into a survival situation who hopes to escape or be rescued. Thinking about this book as an overview is a useful perspective; expecting to walk out into the woods after reading this book and surviving is not.I found the chapter on First Aid to be superior to other survival material I've read. Chapters on Food, Water, Tools and Signals (as in signaling for help) were pretty good as well. I've read better stuff on Shelter and Fire. Like almost every general survival guide, he occasionally falls into the trap of over-explaining best-case scenarios. Yes, bamboo is the greatest if you have access to it, but it's pretty easy to figure out how to use it; tell me how to make a small water vessel with no coconuts or bamboo or large conch shells laying around.There are places where the book is quite explicit, and could serve as a how-to reference. I learned more about antibiotics from this book than living in society and having them prescribed for me for years ever taught me (frankly, the first-aid chapter could explain a lot to the average person about what a doctor does during an office visit and how they figure out what's wrong with you). In other places, the material in the book just gets you thinking in the right direction, but it will take some practice and experience to utilize any of the techniques described. In the same chapter, for instance, the section on CPR rather presumes that you know all about it, and really just addresses when you might want to administer CPR and when it frankly isn't going to help much.The bottom line is that this would be a great book for anyone who thinks they could end up in an unexpected survival situation one day. For those looking for long term survival information, or detailed how-to guides on thriving away from society, look elsewhere. If you want to have a chance to walk away from a disaster in a remote area alive, this book will introduce you to concepts that will make that possible.

This fascinating, information packed book tells you everything you need to know to prevail in a potential life or death situation. It begins with a brief account of Hawke's early life that is so good, I would have read an entire book on it. Here he explains his philosophy on survival, before moving in to all those `what if' scenarios. And there are a lot of them. For example, what to do in: plane crashes, deserts, jungles, islands, oceans, etc. heck, he even talks about cannibalism and argues intelligently about the pluses of it if you're standing at death's front door. Hawke has an easy writing style and makes a good attempt to explain things. If something is overly complex, illustrations kick in. Yes, people may say there's not enough illustrations, but remember this is not designed to be a big `picture book' like The SAS Survival Handbook. And besides, if something is not illustrated - say, for example, some obscure edible plant - it actually forces the reader to look them up, in essence making them memorise the information twice, so there's a stronger chance of actually remembering the stuff.Want to know how much I love this book? I carry it with me on my Smartphone via the Kindle app; I reread it from time to time, and dip into it for various bits of information, but I also want a hard copy for my bookshelf. Get yourself educated: get this book pronto.

Best survival food is meat, any meat.

As an avid reader of hundreds of survival-theme books, I can vouch for this one being great value; not only for the multitude of topics, but also the depth/detail it covers for each.It's not a thin book, and it is packed with a LOT of content. That being said, it's a no BS book meant to help you stay alive through the absolute worst situations you could possibly find yourself in; doing whatever it takes to get you out alive. That means dealing with topics that are NOT for the faint of heart, because Mykel doesn't sugar-coat the difficulties and challenges that you might be facing.Having spent years studying the 'survival' topic; more often than not, an entire book ends up being nothing but 'review' of things I already know. This was not the case with this book; I took a lot of new material from this book. Specifically, the 'medicine' section covers topics/methods that I have never seen before in hundreds of other books of the same type.He delivers the entire book in a form that is very 'human', and it doesn't feel like a textbook other than the few places where there's really no alternative to sharing some 'dry content'. You'll find plenty of humour sprinkled in, in a successful attempt to make some of the 'darker' subjects a little easier to digest.

A great book. I have a few survival books and this one actually covers stuff I had not seen before. Well worth having on your shelf or in you bug out bag.

良さそうな紙を使用しているせいか、重量が重すぎて通勤や寝ながら読めない。　内容はイラスト入りで、英文も比較的やさしいので理解しやすい。

Great book.