Not a book , but the tv show Survivorman with Les Stroud is really good . He ' s like notfake version of Bear Grylls 7 days alone in the wilderness with only a few tools and his own knowledge . There ' s also Alone In The Wilderness with Dick Proenneke . Inspiring documentary about an old man who built his own house from next to nothing somewhere in Alaska and lived out there for ages . There may have been a bookjournal written about this too . <| sep |> I think the attitude towards regional languages goes even further back . It probably dates back to XIII century , when the French kings made significant efforts to centralise the government and weaken the power of the feudal lords and local administrations . This is clear if you follow the history of Occitan , France ' s biggest regional language . Back in the XI , XII and XIII century Occitan was spoken from Toulose that ' s it , if you don ' t include Catalan in the mix to the border with Italy actually a few valleys belonging to Piedmont also speak Occitan , the area was France ' s most populous and economically developed and with a great degree of autonomy . Also , Occitan had arguably more literary and cultural prestige than the langue d ' il , occitan troubadours were sough after all across Europe . It is no coincidence that the war against the Cathars was used to subdue Hugh of Provence , one of the most powerful lords within France and replace him with a lord loyal to the crown and coming from the North Simon de Monfort . From the crusade against the Cathars onwards , Occitan lost more and more ground and prestige against the langue d ' il . Essentially , cultural colonisation was a way to subdue local resistance .