Ron Edwards was born in Australia in 1930 and brought up in the country
where small farmers still plowed with horses and harvested their half
acres with sickles and scythes, and larger properties relied on the
annual visit of the steam-driven threshing machines. By the 1940s all
this had vanished, and Edwards had realized that the country's
traditional crafts also were disappearing. He began making drawings and
notes of them and published these materials in his native country. How
to Make Whips is the American edition of his ninth book. The first
section gives instructions for a basic eight-strand whip; the second
deals with the making of fine kangaroo hide whips. Other chapters
explain the making of bullwhips, snake whips, and whips made from precut
lace. Also included are instructions on plaiting names in whips and
using plaiting designs for whip handles.