World Made by Hand by James Howard Kunstler

World Made by Hand by James Howard Kunstler

This book is similar to One Second After. It is about survival after the grid collapses. In One Second After the grid collapses due to an EMP being set off. In World Made by Hand there is a crisis with oil --- there is not enough oil and countries begin fighting over the world's resources of oil. It leads to war. In the book, it does talk about Washington D.C. being hit and gone. Both books are kind of futuristic. They remind me of Brave New World - and how when that first came out no one thought that look into the future could ever happen. Now, looking back we can see that some of it did come true. I do pray that none of the things in either of these books comes true. I had trouble getting through this book - it wasn't a hard read but hard to think about any of this happening. Then I kept thinking about how our family would survive. It is just a tough subject.

This book is written from a more liberal point of view than One Second After. In World Made by Hand several of the main characters find God to be distant and not very helpful - after all He allowed their world to collapse (their perspective - not mine). There is a group that knows Jesus but they are portrayed as a religious cult. Still, in the end they are shown as being very helpful to the community.

I really enjoyed the book. It is very well written. I think it offers up alot of 'food for thought'. One interesting note is that in both books after the grid collapses a major flu epidemic sweeps through killing a good portion of the population. Interesting to think about the flu being that deadly. We have such a good standard of living that the flu really is no big deal. Yet, in the past, there have been major epidemics of the flu that have killed alot of people. I know there has been alot of talk about a flu epidemic - such as bird flu, swine flu, et. Still, they haven't amounted to much. A major collapse in the standard of living where fresh water isn't available would certainly create a breeding ground for an epidemic to occur.