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Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse: A Novel of the Turbulent Near Future by James Wesley Rawles

When I first read this book, I thought it was interesting fiction, but with a large degree of fantasy. I thought, well that might be possible, but "Near Future"??? No way.

Rawles, a former army intelligence guy, begins his novel with America experiencing crippling inflation, skyrocketing gas prices, and an economic collapse. In a novel format, Rawles discusses how to adapt to and overcome these circumstances and the chaos that follows.

Now we're seeing skyrocketing gas prices, growing inflation, and other economic warning signs. It leaves me to wonder what Rawles knows that I don't.

Rawles is a strong 2nd amendment supporter and his book is an interesting read.

At one point it was a difficult book to get ahold of, but now you can find it on Amazon

Sounds very interesting. I have ordered it. Thank you for posting about it.

This was a very good read for me although the chapter on comms. is a bit of a hard read (my mind wondered and I got drowsy!) . The scenario may have seemed far fetched to some year's ago when this book was first published but to the many who served in the military abroad in many socialist/fascist countries it was absolutely believable. I have seen first hand the happenings in the book and now they are herein the good ole USA!

If this book doesn't open your eye's and show you the need to prepare nothing will!

Rawles blended a training manual into a decent yarn.

Everyone should get this book, it's been updated also with a cpl extra chapter's.

Patriots and Enemies Foreign and Domestic are my 2 favorites I read last year, although I have read Patriot's 5 times since I got it several yrs ago.

I gotta start locking my doors...Somebody's been parusing my library...

BTW, Matt's working on the third book in his "Enemies" trilogy...Should be done with it and to print by early 2009...

Rawles, a former army intelligence guy...

He is also the author of Survival Blog http://www.survivalblog.com

There is an online version of the book here

I saw the thread title and thought of last year's New England Patriots...

pbwalker wrote:I saw the thread title and thought of last year's New England Patriots...

Now that's funny!!!

Paladin wrote:There is an online version of the book here

your link got me hooked, i just finished the book and while in some ways it seems far out there I strongly believe something of this nature will happen. Don't know when but if history teaches us it will happen in a mater of time. I also think it could be a great movie but of course Hollywood will ruin it.

I think everyone should read this
bill

I just got done reading this myself. At first I thought it was going to be a good PAW story, but I was tricked into learning more about preparedness while reading it.

It can get a little dry at certain parts, as it really is a manual in novel format, but those parts are pretty small.

In my thinking the scenario used in the book would be on the extreme end of worst case scenarios (with what FerFAL talks about on his blog being the most likely), but as the saying goes, you hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The knowledge in this book would help with that.

I'm about 2/3rd of the way through the Kindle edition. I really like the scenarios that are laid out and it has got me thinking about a number of things I never would have otherwise. All-in-all though I found the character development a little shallow and the morality is a bit too black-and-white. I prefer to grey things up a little. I understand it's more of a survival manual in story form, but since it reads like a novel I can't help but want a little more from the plot/characters.

Interesting read though too much emphasis on brand names and religion......

One thing I'm curious about is: IIRC, the 'group' settled on British army cammo however, on the cover of the book, the guy is wearing the American digital cammo...

I read this about a year ago or so, but more recently read "One Second After" and found it more realistic, and a much more probable threat that that postulated by Rawles given the administration's inability to deal from a position of strength with rogue regimes.

But both books teach us to have more of a preparedness and self-sufficiency mindset.

Obviously I haven't read "One Second After" but as I understand from the synopsis the plot is that an EMP wave caused by a single high altitude ICBM detonation takes out all of the electrical infrastructure in America.

Call me a young whippersnapper (that's got more than a few credits toward Electrical Engineering), but I simply do not believe that we can be THAT vulnerable. It most decidedly could wreak some serious havoc in a sensitive area like say the stock exchange in New York, but a nationwide black out.... I don't buy it. It would need to be dozens or more detonations, in which case you might as well launch a full-scale nuclear attack. Obviously I've done a little research before stating my piece but here are the known effects for similar high altitude explosions:

In 1962, the United States conducted a test called "Starfish," detonating a nuclear weapon about 250 miles above Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. The resulting EMP reached all the way to the Hawaiian Islands, a little over 700 miles away. There, on the far edge of the EMP field, the explosion extinguished streetlights in Honolulu, tripped circuit breakers, triggered burglar alarms, and damaged a telecommunications relay facility.

The Soviet tests included a series of high altitude nuclear detonations over South Central Asia. EMP from these tests damaged overhead (and even underground) electrical cables at a range of 375 miles, causing surge arrestor burnout, blown fuses, and blackouts.

I don't know how high of an altitude you would need but 250 miles is a loooong way straight up. That only carried for an approximately range of 700 miles and was only strong enough to trip some breakers.

Now you've got the Reds doing some much more serious damage at 375 miles, but that's why the grid has several redundancies in place.

Point being, I find the prospect of a complete and utter extended financial collapse to be much much more feasible and terrifying.

The Annoyed Man wrote:I read this about a year ago or so, but more recently read "One Second After" and found it more realistic, and a much more probable threat that that postulated by Rawles given the administration's inability to deal from a position of strength with rogue regimes.

But both books teach us to have more of a preparedness and self-sufficiency mindset.

I love that book, the thing with the dogs had me near tears.