วันพุธที่ 18 เมษายน พ.ศ. 2555

Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition


Customer Rating :
Rating: 4.6

List Price : $24.95 Price : $15.43
Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition

Product Description

Anyone who wants to learn basic living skills—the kind employed by our forefathers—and adapt them for a better life in the twenty-first century need look no further than this eminently useful, full-color guide. Countless readers have turned to Back to Basics for inspiration and instruction, escaping to an era before power saws and fast food restaurants and rediscovering the pleasures and challenges of a healthier, greener, and more self-sufficient lifestyle.

Now newly updated, the hundreds of projects, step-by-step sequences, photographs, charts, and illustrations in Back to Basics will help you dye your own wool with plant pigments, graft trees, raise chickens, craft a hutch table with hand tools, and make treats such as blueberry peach jam and cheddar cheese. The truly ambitious will find instructions on how to build a log cabin or an adobe brick homestead.

More than just practical advice, this is also a book for dreamers—even if you live in a city apartment you will find your imagination sparked, and there's no reason why you can't, for example, make a loom and weave a rag rug. Complete with tips for old-fashioned fun (square dancing calls, homemade toys, and kayaking tips), this may be the most thorough book on voluntary simplicity available. 2,000 color photos and 200 black-and-white illustrations.




    Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition Reviews


    Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition Reviews


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    Customer Reviews
    Average Customer Review
    108 Reviews
    5 star:
     (80)
    4 star:
     (22)
    3 star:
     (3)
    2 star:
     (2)
    1 star:
     (1)
     
     
     

    70 of 70 people found the following review helpful
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Skills Your Grandparents Had, But You Probably Don't, July 27, 2008
    By 
    David Bennett (United States) - See all my reviews
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    This review is from: Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition (Hardcover)
    Until I checked this book out of the library, I had rarely given a thought to getting "back to basics," that is learning how to be more self-sufficient. After I read the book, I soon bought it, because it opened my eyes to the many ways that I am almost entirely dependent upon others for my basic needs. "Back to Basics" is a helpful guide for those who want to get away from it all and live totally independently on a farm, and even those like myself that live in town, but that want to become more self-sufficient, and less dependent on expensive fossil fuels and foods that someone else has raised or grown.

    "Back to Basics" is a colorful, easy-to-understand encyclopedia of basic skills. There are hundreds of color photos, and most lessons are laid out step-by-step, making the concepts very easy to learn. The book is divided into six basic parts:

    I. Land: Buying It - Building on it (how to choose land, build a home, develop a water supply, create a sauna, etc)... Read more
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    382 of 421 people found the following review helpful
    3.0 out of 5 stars Some good information, but unfocused (details), October 24, 2008
    By 
    Patrick W. Crabtree "The Old Grottomaster" (Lucasville, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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    This review is from: Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition (Hardcover)
    This illustrated book has been published chiefly for those who are new to country living, and/or who have an interest in self-sufficiency and in retrieving some of the "lost arts" which are appurtenant to traditional country life. The information is mostly introductory and rudimentary... a good start for most folks new to these areas of interest.

    I have lived in the foothills of rural Appalachia for 55 years and have been involved in carrying out nearly all the construction, activities, arts, and crafts found within this text. Some of the text, (along with the accompanying drawings and photos), is quite good. The information is solid and one can get started along the right track; however, the work goes astray (the publishers sort of "threw in the kitchen sink"), into areas which are not particularly relevant to traditional country living. The editors simply went too far afield when they got into topics such as "Winter Sports," "Kayaking and Rafting," "Foraging for Flour and... Read more
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    49 of 52 people found the following review helpful
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Best of Basics..., May 20, 2008
    By 
    This review is from: Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition (Hardcover)
    This is simply the best reference book for self sufficient country living ever, bar none. From building to growing to conserving to preserving to raising animals to cooking... recreation, knitting, herbs, knots, quilting, cider, canoeing, candle making, soaps, blacksmithing, not to mention beer and wine making; and everything in between and extending from both ends - this book has it all. The table of contents only touches on what's contained. If you can think of it, this book probably has it. It is *the* encyclopedia of living the "basics."

    At the end of the movie adaptation of H.G.Wells classic "The Time Machine", the main character escapes to the future where humanity has forgotten all basic knowledge and skills. The friends that he leaves behind discover that he has taken only three books with him, and we're left to wonderingly consider which three - and which three we might bring. This book would be one of my three. After all, what culture could survive long without... Read more
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