"In this essential new book, self-protection expert and former military intelligence officer Tim Larkin changes the way we think about violence in order to save our lives. By deconstructing our assumptions about violence--its morality, its function in modern society, how it actually works--Larkin unlocks the shackles of our own taboos and arms us with what we need to know to prevent, prepare for, and survive the unthinkable event of life-or-death violence. Through a series of harrowing true-life stories, Larkin demonstrates that violence is a tool equally effective in the hands of the "bad guy" or the "good guy"; that the person who acts first, fastest and with the full force of their body is the one who survives; and that each and every one of us is capable of being that person when our lives are at stake."--Amazon.com.