|  Is it destined to be a law with us, an iron and withering rule, that anything that cannot be tamed, domesticated, and put to work, to use, shall die? A river, a wolf, a small tribe of hunting people? All the while we preserve a few wretched specimens of this or that in a zoo, a controlled park or reservation, or as a collection of images on film, part of an ever-growing catalog of fossil life.
John Haines The books in this section are all more or less comprehensive guides to surviving in the wilderness, either for the short term, until you are rescued, or for the long term, either because you choose to survive for a long time in the wilderness, or because things have gone utterly wrong. Any book in this section will probably tell you what you need to know to stay alive in the wilderness. They all cover very similar topics, since wilderness survival requires a basic set of skills and knowledge how to build shelter, make a fire, find water, signal for help, find your way, get food, and, ultimately, achieve some level of comfort under the circumstances. They all talk, too, one way or another, about the psychology of survival. Where the texts differ, then, is in style, comprehensiveness, portability, attitude, clarity, detail, illustrations, and price clearly a matter of personal preference.
 David Alloway, Desert Survival Skills (Austin TX: University of Texas Press, 2000), ISBN 0-29270-492-5. This book is intended to teach you how to survive when circumstances beyond your control strand you in the desert environment. The author is a naturalist at Big Bend Ranch State Park who has taught and practiced arid land survival techniques in the United States, Mexico, and Australia for over twenty years, and it is clear that he both respects and loves the desert; in fact, the underlying theme of the book is learning how to integrate yourself into the desert ecosystem, how to view the desert as a provider rather than an enemy. The book begins with a chapter entitled Intelligence: The Ultimate Survival Tool and goes on to cover survival kits, water, fire, shelter, tools and weapons, traveling, and wayfinding, enlivened with stories sometimes darkly humorous from the authors own considerable experience. This is a practical, comprehensive handbook for both short-term and long-term survival in the Chihuahuan and other North American deserts.
 Bradford Angier, How to Stay Alive in the Woods (New York NY: Simon & Schuster, 1998), ISBN 0-68483-101-5. Originally published in 1956, this is an old-fashioned, conversational compilation of lore, techniques, woodcraft tips, and ideas for survival arranged in four parts sustenance, warmth, orientation, and safety. While it covers much ground in common with other survival books shelter, edible plants, expedient clothing, traps, signaling it is filled with other gems as well, such as how to make a torch, how to keep blowflies away from your meat, and how to sweeten water by boiling it with charred hardwood. It has no index, so you cant look things up; and, of course, it does not discuss Gore-Tex, polypropylene, the Global Positioning System, or cell phones. This is a book to read for pleasure before you head out into the woods, or to bring along for reading on the trail. It is full of good ideas, thoughtful commentary, and really neat tricks. It is small and light and fits in your backpack.
 Tom Brown, Jr., et al., Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival (New York NY: Berkley Publishing, 1983), ISBN 0-425-10572-5. The author has written numerous books on tracking, nature awareness, and wilderness survival, as well as stories in which he claims to have learned almost miraculous tracking and observation skills from an elderly and otherwise mysterious Apache scout named Stalking Wolf in New Jersey. Whatever the source of his skills, this well written book is a comprehensive collection of wilderness survival skills, enlivened by anecdotes and stories, and includes a lengthy section describing one hundred edible plants, as well as information about shelters, animal snares, the basics of tracking and camouflage, food preparation, and primitive living skills.
 Gregory Davenport, Wilderness Survival (Mechanicsburg PA: Stackpole Books, 1998), ISBN 0-8117-2985-0. Davenport is a former USAF survival instructor and currently the operator of a survival school named Simply Survival in Stevenson, Washington. This book is largely a summary of the Air Force survival training manual AFR 64-4, which is a good idea the Air Force manual is almost 600 large pages long. The book is organized according to what Davenport calls the five survival essentials personal protection (clothing, shelter, fire), signaling (manmade and improvised), sustenance (water and food), travel (with and without a map and compass), and health (psychological stress, traumatic and environmental injuries). Some ideas have changed since the 1985 Air Force manual for example, it is no longer considered necessary to boil water for ten minutes in order to purify it but this book is a solid, straightforward, and helpful text on wilderness survival.
 Bob Harris, A Handbook For Wilderness Survival (New York NY: M. Evans and Company, 1996), ISBN 0-87131-787-7. The author, a past director of the Oregon Wildlife Federation, writes, Nature is never hostile, only indifferent. You will not . . . suffer undue hardship unless you are both careless and stupid. This manual lays out the basics of wilderness survival an emergency survival kit; direction finding and map use; making clothing, shelter, and fire; finding water and getting food from animals, plants, and fish; avoiding hypothermia and dehydration; and making basic workable tools. The book is comprehensive and certainly covers the ground; but it suffers from a serious lack of illustrations, has no index, and is written in tiny print with no subheadings.
 Chris Janowsky, Survival: A Manual That Could Save Your Life (Boulder CO: Paladin Press, 1986), ISBN 0-87364-506-5. Janowsky is one of the leading figures in wilderness survival training, and this book is one of the best manuals available. Unlike many survival manuals, this one contains a section on basic wilderness medicine. This is a very practical book, with the usual sections on survival kits, fire, shelter, food, water, signaling, direction-finding, and improvised survival tools and weapons, along with numerous photographs and line drawings. Each discussion includes tips and review topics. This is, overall, a comprehensive and helpful book. My major gripe is that the book is poorly produced: the photographs are murky, and the print is unnecessarily tiny and hard to read.
 Xavier Maniguet, Survival: How to Prevail in Hostile Environments (New York, NY: Barnes & Noble, 1999), ISBN 0760717044. This is in many ways an unusual book, originally written in French by a physician, not least because of its organization. It is divided into three sections. The first section deals with the primary threats to human life cold, heat, thirst, physical exertion, sharks, snakes, and other venomous and poisonous creatures; and ends with tips about how to survive in a group. The second section explains how to endure in specific hostile environments on the sea and in shipwrecks, under the water, in the desert, the jungle, the mountains, and at the poles. The third section, Science and Survival, includes vital information about weather and survival, snow and avalanches, the survival diet, food gathering, motion sickness and sensory aberrations, medicine without a doctor, and other important survival skills and techniques. The sections are accompanied by true and often fascinating accounts of survival; there are numerous charts and illustrations; and the recommendations are backed by citations to the scientific literature. There is an index, bibliography, glossary, and an appendix on technical equipment.
 Dale Martin, Into the Primitive (Boulder CO: Paladin Press, 1989), ISBN 0-87364-530-8. Although the book is subtitled Advanced Trapping Techniques, trapping in fact is the subject of just one chapter. This is not really a comprehensive survival guide, although it covers such standard subjects as food gathering thats where the trapping comes in and shelter, water, and fire. More than anything else, I think, this is a book of ideas, almost all of them interesting and practical, about survival techniques. There is, for example, a chapter entitled Around the Camp, which deals with improvising a wilderness kitchen, making camp furniture, and crafting toys, such as stilts and grass whistles. There is also a chapter on path guarders, alarms, and weapons, presumably for those who, for one reason or another, really care about their privacy. And, I should add, the lengthy chapter on trapping and snaring is full of neat tricks and good ideas.
 Len McDougall, Practical Outdoor Survival: A Modern Approach (New York NY: Lyons & Burford Publishers, 1992), ISBN 1-55821-228-0. This is a very practical approach to a specific problem how to survive in the wilderness, usually for 72 hours or less, until you are rescued or can figure out how to get where you were going. A canoeist who has just lost his vessel and all of his supplies, the author says, does not need to know how to tan a hide, especially if he has a survival kit in a buttpack; a woodsman in a survival situation does not need to know how to chip a knife from a piece of obsidian, the author says, because he has the foresight to carry a good knife. One can certainly argue the wisdom of this approach; but there is no question that, within this scope, the book does a good job of teaching the basics the survival kit, survival shelters, fire, water, and food. This is one of the few wilderness survival books to discuss the use of survival firearms. The black-and-white line drawings are very clear, but there are not many of them; the descriptions are well written but brief. This is a book for survival beginners people whose interest is in hiking or canoeing and may suddenly find themselves in trouble, people who may just need to get through a few days of nasty weather in order to make it out alive.
 U.S. Army Survival Manual FM 21-76 (New York NY: Dorset Press, 1994), ISBN 1-56619-022-3. This standard U.S. Army survival manual has no copyright since it is a government publication, and paid for with tax money, it belongs to everyone so it has been reprinted, in various incarnations, by several different publishers, some of them ephemeral. Some of these reprints and revisions are actually of earlier versions, so you should always check the date. This is a good, solid, thorough manual, with plenty of illustrations, and covering all the basics psychology of survival, survival planning and survival sits, basic survival medicine, water procurement, firecraft, animal and plant food procurement, poisonous plants and dangerous animals, direction finding, signaling, and field-expedient weapons, tools, and equipment. The manual also covers survival in specific environments, including desert, tropical, cold weather, and ocean. Although it is not what I would call engagingly written it is a military manual after all it certainly covers the ground.
 John Wiseman, The SAS Survival Handbook (London UK: HarperCollins, 1999), ISBN 0-00653-140-7; also available in a really tiny size, ISBN 0-00470-167-4; and, condensed, printed on heavy water-resistant stock, ISBN 0-00255-804-1. The original SAS manual is big and awkward depending on the edition, either too wide or too thick but it is comprehensive and well illustrated, covering every sort of climate and terrain, and explaining survival skills from the most basic to the most sophisticated long-term survival techniques. It includes full-color illustrations of plants edible, medicinal, and poisonous and of potentially dangerous animals. You would think its unwieldiness is the price you pay for all that information. But not so. HarperCollins has published a 384-page reduced-size version containing everything in the original, but measuring about the size of a 3" x 5" card and less than an inch thick. It is not waterproof, but it is otherwise something you could in fact toss into your pack. And it costs around ten bucks.
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