Ron Edwards was born in Australia in 1930 and brought up in the country where the small farmers still plowed with horses and harvested their half acres with sickles and scythes, while the larger properties relied on the annual visit of the steam-driven threshing machines to process their crops. By the 1940s all this had vanished, but by then Edwards had realized that the country's traditional crafts were also disappearing. He began to note some of them in drawings and text and later published these materials in his native country. How to Make Whips is the American edition of his ninth book.
The first section of How to Make Whips gives instructions for a basic 8-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.