A Review Of "A Failure Of Civility"

I had read about this book in passing about a year ago and had downloaded the excerpt of it to read at length. I remember about how impressed I was about the length of the excerpt. Most free excerpts from authors only contain a chapter or two at most. The excerpt for A Failure of Civility (AFOC) was right around 80 pages in length. The two authors care that their information and knowledge is shared with as many people as possible.

A while back the Defensive Training Group had some copies available for purchase. I snapped one up right away.

Immediately I noticed the larger sized font and short paragraphs. The short paragraphs allow for concise, focused thoughts and ideas and the large font can be read under a flashlight or by firelight if necessary. For even more focus, there are gray stand out boxes that will explore a thought or define a term in more depth.

However, the items that really stuck out to me is the use of stories, both real and imagined, of what life is like under the conditions of AFOC. Stories from the Balkans (Selco's account from SHTFSchool.com), cities in the grip of rioting here in the states, and then imagined scenarios to drive home a point were perfect in grabbing the reader's attention and impart necessary knowledge.

Underlying it all was the idea that "bugging out" is not going to work for the vast majority of people. Instead, to tactically understand your neighborhood and develop the relationships to create an underpinning for the creation of Neighborhood Protection Plans (NPPs) and Neighborhood Protection Teams (NPTs) is the key to surviving. These are not "militias" or civilian "SWAT" teams, these are the grouping of neighbors who take upon themselves the responsibility of protecting their neighborhood.

The authors are unblinking in their portrayal of that possible reality. They list 22 possible Catastrophic Events that would change life as we know it that they believe could happen in our lifetime: financial collapse, war, EMP, cyber warfare, natural disasters, and so forth. No zombie apocalypse here. Yet the effects on everyday life for the survivors of such are listed. Common diseases that are minor today could be fatal in a AFOC situation. Many of things that happen behind closed doors today would be done in possible full view of others. The mental and psychological planning and preparing for these kinds of events is just as important as the physical preparations.

The book is really focused more on the suburban survivor of these kinds of events. There are interesting chapters on surviving in a multi-storied buildings. Having lived on an edge of a large city for the last several years, I can really appreciate the direction the authors have taken with this book.

Right now the Defensive Training Group is out of copies, but keep checking back on the link above to check for availability.