John Plant

Primitive Technology, A Survivalist’s Guide to Building Tools, Shelters & More In the Wild, by John Plant (pp 191). Published 2019. The author is an Australian who has grown to love making things from natural materials without modern tools. In fact, throughout the book are lessons about making basic tools like cutting stones, axes, cordage, and other elemental or prerequisite steps of making baskets, shelters, pottery, ovens, and more. Performing the tasks in the book is understandably beyond written instructions, despite the numerous photographs and step by step instructions he included. Unfortunately, there were not enough photographs, and as often as not the instructions were insufficient. Apparently the author also has YouTube videos about these same techniques, and I’m guessing for many of the projects it takes a combination of the written word and visible aids to figure them out. And that makes sense because much of what he describes is far from easy, even to him, which he readily admits. Regardless, this is a great book to see what is possible, and provides sufficient detail to attempt some, if not all, of the projects. A nice aspect of the book is the author’s recognition of the impact of using natural materials, and he warns against unnecessary cutting of wood or other materials: he strongly believes in sustainable use of natural resources. Now I’ll need to check out his videos.… (meer)