Back to Basics: How to Learn and Enjoy Traditional American Skills

I am a survivalist by nature and always am looking for ways to prep myself for the worst. Even though I know a lot it is always good to have a reference around just in case you forget something. This book can give you all that you need for survival in North America and many other locations with little effort, great detail, and lots of pictures for easy to understand explanations. This is an older book that was recommended to me by another mountain man here on Amazon.com rather than some of the other self-sufficiency books. I found all the information here to be well documented and referenced and most importantly VERY accurate. Though this book is certainly no field guide (you can't stick in easily in your pocket) it is also VERY thorough. I would also recommend as a companion that you get the SAS survival guide only because that does fit in your pocket and was written by a well-known former British Special Ops member.Many of the books you will see hear will try to tout all the pictures they have, the wide variety of topics they cover, or some other third thing but none of them will tell you the overall quality of the knowledge provided. Some are better than others such as The Guide to Self-Sufficiency published by DK Books but all of them seem to be lacking short concise answers and explanations. Others just ramble and others worse yet have irrelevant information. The chapters of this book are as follows:1) Land: Different types of homes that can be built, how to prepare/cut wood, use building tools/supplies, preparing land for a home, etc.2) Energy Sources: This explains how to use the natural world for a variety of tasks from grinding grain (water wheel) to using the sun and or earth for natural and continuous heating and cooling. Other topics include wind, solar, etc.3) Raising Food: This covers the care of and maintenance of livestock, plants, gardens, fish, bees, pests, etc.4) Keeping and storing food/harvest: Making cheese and other diaries, gathering maple sugar, bread making, recipes, etc.5) Home crafts and skills: Covers everything from basket making to metal/blacksmithing. Others include leather tanning, soap making, weaving, coloring, etc.6) Recreation: This is where the authors have a bit more fun in going over the old activities people used to enjoy such as the may pole, marbles, and tons of other oddities. It will even teach you to make dolls, board games, canoe, and more.Now keep in mind this is a abridged version of everything in the book. It has other things that include first aid, weather forecasting, edible plants, well making and more. It is again VERY thorough and with out any unnecessary fluff as some other books may have. Just because something is 30 years old (the book was published in the 1980s) doesn't mean the information is not relevant. The information provided is quite relevant and has not really changed at all even over the last 300 years in American history. This is a great survivalist book and guide to self-sufficiency, so don't wait and buy this great book.

Just received this book last night and opened this morning. My head is swimming with so many ideas and useful things to know. Great addition to the home library.

Great addition to my library. Great information and how to from an earlier time.

My husband loves this book- he had it when he was really young, and requested it for christmas.... he was so excited to have a copy again.

Back when this first came out in 1980 it was pretty unique. While it has a little of everything nothing much is really in depth. If you're new to the concept of survival or homesteading it'll point you down the right path. It briefly introduced me to Eric Sloane & Scott Nearing, among others. This, believe it or not, is one of those books that changed the course of my life.. how you like that, Reader's Digest?I grew up on a farm so some of this was nothing new, but some concepts were completely alien to me. Keep in mind, this book was first published around 1980 and inside it's VERY 70s. That matters little, it's a different world before everybody and their brother had a computer and a smartphone. This was on the tailend of the back to the land movement and one of the best books on the subject at the time and for many years after.Nowadays I have a library dedicated to this subject since it seems to have gotten popular again the last 10-15 years or so and there are several good books out there now, but this still holds it's own to this day. If you wanted to go deep into the woods, build a shelter, grow a garden and catch some meat, not to mention prep and store it for later, this will help you get there.Another cool thing about this, is all the other books/publications Reader's Digest used when they put this together. Some are still in print, but most is long forgotten, I've spent years collection some of the other works used in creating this.If you want to learn how to do things yourself, anything from bee keeping to making candles, butchering your own hog, building a cabin or s stone wall, different ways to plant a garden or how to spin wool, how to make your own dye, really old time games, it's in here and so much more. If I only had one book (besides my Bible) this would be it, and in years past, has been. It's allowed me to do things I never thought I'd be able to do and has also served as a springboard into other like areas.

This book sits on my parents bookshelf, they wouldent give it to me so I got my own. It shipped very fast, but it might be worth the money to get it in new quality. I plan on using it and geting it dirty and didnt need it to be new, it came water damaged. Im not sure who is to blame, the package was sitting next to my mail box in the snow. I dont want to downgrade the book, it tell you eberything and is VERY usefull. If you plan on taking it outside and using it as a guide, then a little dammage is no big deal. I can still read everything I need to read, so I'm ok with it.

I was please withe the book, It a very useful book.

book was in pristine condition, shipping was fast. price was great!

This book is an excellent reading experience with tons of incredibly useful ideas and information regarding the way things were done when things were made to last! I, myself, have used the soap making recipe to make my own soap. It truly is a book that, with minimal tools, one could survive without all of the modern things we have now. Kids especially would find a lot of this truly fascinating!

Entspricht genau der Beschreibung + pünktlich! bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla

While at face value this book may seem a little dated, don't let that put you off. The sizeable inside is packed full of genuinely brilliant information on how to do everything from building a wood cabin (including what types of trees to use, joints, construction techniques) or smokehouse, to growing food, making decorations, harvesting, camping and much more.The illustrations are incredibly clear and actually, I think, much more useful than the photography included in some sections of later editions of this book.My dream is to one day get to the point where I can live off grid, or at least in a much more remote location than I do now and I can honestly say that I can see this book being an invaluable reference for things that I possibly never even contemplated having to know. I cant recommend it enough.

read it decades ago in my dads books and still great today

Book is in good shape, worth the price.