Apocalypse Ready: The Manual of Manuals; a Century of Panic Prevention

by Taras Young

An expertly curated compilation of over one hundred years of officially published, step-by-step guides on how to deal with every kind of disaster imaginable, drawn from government archives around the world. Global warming continues to cause extreme weather events and threatens to destroy the planet, while the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us that disaster can manifest at any time. These and other possible impending catastrophes have caused rising levels of collective fear in nations around the world, and increasing demand for governments to plan, prepare, and avert calamity for its citizens. In Apocalypse Ready , Taras Young collects official survival and emergency documents from the United States to the Soviet Union offering essential survival tips and invaluable life-saving strategies for every possible cataclysmic eventuality. Organized into four broad disaster-themed scenarios―“Pandemics,” “Natural Disasters,” “Nuclear War,” and “Alien Invasion”―this unique collection displays a plethora of questionable survival advice and scare tactics from all around the globe for response to every disaster scenario that has occurred or been imagined since the early twentieth century. From posters showing how to minimize your chances of catching the Spanish flu to documents indicating how to identify aliens, this carefully curated selection of disaster-planning documents reveals differences in public attitudes toward impending catastrophe since the 1910s. Informative commentary by Young provides historical contexts for the official advice, exploring how our universal preoccupation with apocalypse has manifested globally, and explanatory captions clarify the messages contained in the survival documents. 750 illustrations

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, History

256 pages, Hardcover

Published July 5, 2022

Reviews

[Pablo · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. It has a lot of interesting documents, but the presentation is a bit dry sometimes.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a ready reference so much as a compendium on the design of emergency readiness materials. There’s some nice contextual text but the reader is left to draw inferences and comparisons between the manuals and artwork mostly on their own. The closing chapter on contact with aliens is an awkward fit: you get the impression the author had hoped to find a good amount of official materials, but this short chapter is padded with amateur and hobbyist correspondence about alien sightings that’s mostly outside of the book’s scope.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was absolutely fascinating to read all these manuals, with their snappy captions and really amazing visual aids. We try so hard to be ready, to feel there is SOMETHING we can do. Sometimes there is. Sometimes our trained prepared responses can save lives - ours and others. Sometimes we are just huddling under a school desk waiting for the blast.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Looked cool, but ultimately a pretty meh treatment of emergency communication.

[kerrigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some interesting bits about the history and truths behind alien invasions, nuclear war, and such but from the cover I thought this book was more of a How To, I was wrong.

It’s A manual OF manuals, not THE manual of manuals.

Anyway, I thought it was a bit boring, but then again as a millennial I’ve lived through quite a few prophesied end of the worlds, I might be tired of hearing about it.

[Drymice · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit boring at parts, but the manuals were pretty interesting. Wish there was more on AIDS

[Igo Lubczański · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing collection of design history – I would love to see even more in-depth descriptions and some insight into the design decisions. A worthy read.