Jump to content

Which three books to rebuild a civilisation?


The Marquis de Leech

Recommended Posts

A thought experiment:

 

You are tasked with rebuilding a society where every piece of knowledge (whether scientific, cultural, political, or religious) has been lost. You are starting from scratch.

 

To help you, you are allowed to bring along three books from our world. They can be any genre, fiction or non-fiction. The question is, which three books would you take?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is impossible without cheating (encyclopaedia britannica or so). Apparently people can still *read*, so not all knowledge is lost.

It would probably not help much to bring a fat physics textbook because a lot of that knowledge is rather useless without elaborate laboratories, electricity etc. Similarly for most Engineering or Chemistry textbooks, although these would of course be highly valuable to survival in other ways. We are way too specialized and advanced in many sciences to start from scratch with almost every single book pre-supposing not only lots of knowledge but also infrastructure

 

So I'd probably try to find a ca. 1880 accessible "general purpose" handbook for natural science and engineering. This already has the basics of electricity as well as steam engines and lots of mechanical and civic engineering and hopefully other knowledge could be reconstructed by trial and error from what's contained in the book. And many of the machines and setups could still be manufactured by an artisan in a fairly basic workshop (still pre-supposing more infrastructure and practical knowledge than nothing).

It would also include some remarks on experimental method and "basic" advanced maths like calculus.

 

Then a similar book on general medicine, anatomy, hygiene, probably from a somewhat later time.

(Agricultural knowledge has to be in one of those two books as well).

 

So I would have one book left for all philosophical and cultural knowledge... No idea

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Further elaboration: you know everything you know at the moment, but are the only person around with full knowledge of modernity. You can communicate and teach others, however (including teaching them mathematics, basic science, and learning to read).

 

There is also no immediate food shortage or weather issues.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok well the criterion are still fairly broad so I will try the same density strokes.

 

I personally would go for agriculture and farming 101 in order to ensure we could grow some food.

Medicine, Health and Hygiend 101 to ensure we could treat illness and spread understanding on sanitation and health.

Finally I would probably bring something like a book of Common English Law to help the new civilisation understand boundaries.

 

I think anything like books on Industrialisation would be a waste because the historical base would not be there - there would be no supporting infrastructure to put industrialisation into action - Sure you can understand how a steam engine may work but without the ability to measure and smith the components it would have the same sort of abstract benefit as understanding Orbital Mechanics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This sounds like a god-complex thing but we're talking hypothetical here. In reality I'd be dead within 3 days as I have zero basic survival skills so me having three books would be no use to me whatsoever - unless it was "basic survival skills" and something I could use as a weapon. It's not like anyone would take notice of my ramblings about the book being useful. Without people around with essential skills like farming,medicine, fighting, engineering (practical sort) 3 books aren't going to solve anything so I'd just pick 3 that I can read several times over before dying.

 

If I was Jack Bauer though I'd take some combination of the following.

 

1) I'd definitely take one of the main religious texts (probably one that is cool with the concept of more than one god) and insert useful rules eg hygiene, technology etc. From that last sentence you can tell I'm atheist but if you want to restart civilization the easiest way to get people to do stuff without understanding it is via religion. Two millennia on from that they can blame the woes of society on my ego-trip but I'd live with it in the sense I had to come up with something that allowed people to survive.

 

I wouldn't bother with any literature as they can make their own once society is up and running. It'd pain me to do so but hard decisions have to be made.

 

2) as a cheat I'd be taking some book on computer programming/building in the hope we can access the net or just find computers that have music, books, etc on them. That's where we'd rely on getting old culture back.

 

3) A book of maps - assuming all maps have disappeared too. At least for the region i'm in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The fact that you probably wouldn't pick any of the most influential books from our own history is both amusing and disturbing.

 

This must be the darkest timeline.

 

- Actually that's a good point. I'd say definitely throw in a reasonably comprehensive history book on all the man made catastrophes of our history, so they know what not to do.

 

A good collection of disasters would be useful. Would also inspire hope in the sense we've got through it before.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a pocket-sized volume on one of my shelves called The SAS Survival Handbook.  If I wanted to live longer than three days I'd include that.  If there were no danger or lack of water etc.... let me get back to you!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To clarify: there is no danger, no lack of water or anything. If you want, you can sit around all day and gorge yourself on fruit. Personal survival isn't the issue - it's about what texts you would try to re-start a society with.

 

If things were that great we'd maybe be better off not restarting civilization - sounds good already!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...