The Cold War era civil defense programs promoted public atomic bomb shelters, personal fallout shelters, and training for children, such as the Duck and Cover films. The origins of the modern survivalist movement in the United Kingdom and the United States include government policies, threats of nuclear warfare, religious beliefs, and writers who warned of social or economic collapse in both non-fiction and apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction.

History 1930s to 1950s 1950 booklet Survival Under Atomic Attack, a civil defense publication

Use of the term survivalist dates from the early 1980s. Survivalists often acquire first aid and emergency medical/ paramedic training, self-defense training ( martial arts, firearm safety), and self-sufficiency training, and they often build structures such as survival retreats or underground shelters that may help them survive a catastrophic failure of society. The stockpiling of supplies is itself a wide spectrum, from survival kits (ready bags, bug-out bags) to entire bunkers in extreme cases. Survivalism emphasises self-reliance, stockpiling supplies, and gaining survival knowledge and skills. Nonetheless, prepping can be as limited as preparing for a personal emergency (such as a job loss, storm damage to one's home, or getting lost in wooded terrain), or it can be as extensive as a personal identity or collective identity with a devoted lifestyle.

There is no bright line dividing general emergency preparedness from prepping in the form of survivalism (these concepts are a spectrum), but a qualitative distinction is often recognized whereby preppers/survivalists prepare especially extensively because they have higher estimations of the risk of catastrophes happening. Preparations may anticipate short-term scenarios or long-term, on scales ranging from personal adversity, to local disruption of services, to international or global catastrophe. Survivalism is a social movement of individuals or groups (called survivalists or preppers ) who proactively prepare for emergencies, such as natural disasters, as well as other disasters causing disruption to social order (that is, civil disorder) caused by political or economic crises. ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) JSTOR ( September 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article needs additional citations for verification.

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