Book

The Lost Ways

by Claude Davis

📖 Overview

The Lost Ways is a survival and self-reliance guide that teaches forgotten skills from America's frontier era. The book contains detailed instructions for skills like food preservation, shelter building, and natural medicine preparation using methods from previous generations. The text draws from multiple historical sources and cultural traditions, including Native American practices, pioneer techniques, and early colonial approaches to self-sufficiency. Each chapter focuses on specific survival skills with step-by-step instructions and illustrations. The core message centers on reclaiming independence through practical knowledge and reducing reliance on modern systems. Beyond pure survival tactics, the book examines the mindset and daily habits that allowed previous generations to thrive without current technology and infrastructure.

👀 Reviews

Readers appreciate the practical survival skills and traditional techniques covered, with many highlighting the detailed instructions for food preservation, natural medicine, and shelter building. Several reviewers noted the value of learning forgotten methods like making pemmican and building self-feeding fires. Common criticisms focus on formatting and organization issues in both print and digital versions. Multiple readers mentioned typos and grammatical errors. Some found the writing style repetitive and noted that similar information is available free online. A few reviewers questioned the accuracy of certain historical claims. Amazon: 4.4/5 (2,100+ reviews) "Good information but needs better editing" - frequent comment "Worth it for the pemmican recipe alone" - multiple mentions Goodreads: 4.2/5 (850+ reviews) "Contains practical knowledge missing from modern survival books" "Too much filler content between useful sections" Several readers noted difficulty accessing the advertised bonus materials and reported issues with customer service when attempting to get refunds.

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The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery The guidebook contains instructions for hundreds of traditional country skills from the 1800s and early 1900s, including farming, animal husbandry, and food preservation.

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🤔 Interesting facts

🌿 The author, Claude Davis, is a survival expert who lives a 17th-century lifestyle in a self-built log cabin with his family, practicing the traditional skills he writes about. 🔥 The book contains forgotten recipes from Native American scouts, including how to make pemmican - a nutrient-dense survival food that can last up to 50 years without refrigeration. ⚡️ One section teaches readers how to build an underground storm shelter called a "backyard liberty," based on techniques used by Native Americans to survive extreme weather conditions. 🏺 The book details how to preserve water in pit wells without plastic or modern materials, using a method from ancient civilizations that keeps water fresh for months. 🌾 A unique feature is the inclusion of "superfoods" that were common during the Great Depression but are largely forgotten today, including a nutrient-rich food made from common lawn weeds.