Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-324) and index.

Part I: A Cyberattack -- 1. Warfare 2.0 -- 2. AK-47s and EMPs -- 3. Regulation Gridlock -- 4. Attack Surfaces -- 5. Guardians of the Grid -- 6. What Are the Odds? -- 7. Preparing the Battlefield -- 8. Independent Actors -- Part II: A Nation Unprepared -- 9. Step Up, Step Down -- 10. Extra Batteries -- 11. State of Emergency -- 12. Press Six If You've Been Affected by a Disaster -- Part III: Surviving the Aftermath -- 13. The Ark Builders -- 14. Some Men Are an Island -- 15. Where the Buffalo Roamed -- 16. The Mormons -- 17. State of Deseret -- 18. Constructive Ambiguity -- 19. Solutions -- 20. Summing Up -- Epilogue: The Virtue of a Plan.

Imagine a blackout lasting not days, but weeks or months and affecting tens of millions of people over several states. Koppel believes that a well-designed attack on just one of the nation's three electric power grids could cripple much of our infrastructure-- and in the age of cyberwarfare, a laptop has become the only necessary weapon. And the federal government, while well prepared for natural disasters, has no plan for the aftermath of an attack on the power grid. How, Koppel asks, will ordinary civilians survive?