
Ask HN: What are the essential books of knowledge for civilization? - iand
I saw a reference in another HN post to &quot;507 Movements&quot;, a classic textbook on mechanisms, and it set me wondering what books would be most useful to rebuild the world in the event of a collapse of society. I&#x27;m thinking of definitive books on agriculture, engineering, metallurgy, etc. What would be your choice of books that could be used to learn the fundamentals of civilization?
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EdwardCoffin
There used to be a website called Canonical Tomes, which provided a way for
people to propose and vote on the most essential books on various topics. It's
been gone for a long time now, but you can browse through it on archive.org
here:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20010616232238/http://www.canonic...](http://web.archive.org/web/20010616232238/http://www.canonicaltomes.org/index.cgi)
. You might find some useful stuff there.

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fractallyte
As well as definitive books, you need a carefully graded way of proceeding
through them - plus a very good index. As David Palmer pointed out in his
novel _Emergence_ , one would have to devise a 'system to locate specifics in
such huge collection. Useless otherwise; researcher could spend most of life
looking for data instead of using.'

Other critical books should include philosophy and science: it took a _long_
time to build a technological civilization, and the Scientific Method is the
cornerstone of this. (And yet even now, much of the world is still mired
superstition/religion.)

More crucial lessons from John Wyndham's _The Day of the Triffids_ : 'The most
valuable part of our flying start is knowledge. That's the short cut to save
us starting where our ancestors did. We've got it all there in books if we
take the trouble to find out about it...

'From my reading of history, the thing you have to have to use knowledge is
leisure. Where _everybody_ has to work hard just to get a living and there is
no leisure to think, knowledge stagnates, and people with it. The thinking has
to be done largely by people who are not directly productive - by people who
appear to be living almost entirely on the work of others, but are, in fact, a
long-term investment. Learning grew up in the cities and in great institutions
- it was the labour of the countryside that supported them...

'A community of our present size cannot hope to do more than exist and
decline. If we stay here as we are, just ten of us now, the end is, quite
inevitably, a gradual and useless fade-out. If there are children we shall be
able to spare only enough time from our labour to give them just a rudimentary
education; on generation further, and we shall have savages or clods. To hold
our own, to make any use of all the knowledge in the libraries we must have
the teacher, the doctor, and the leader, and we must be able to support them
while they help us.'

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BWStearns
I know that conflict is the less civilized side of civilization, and that HN
generally is opposed to it (as sane people are), but a discussion of societal
development would be lacking without an honest consideration of where the
civilized components break down.

I would suggest Musashi
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Five_Rings](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Five_Rings)),
Clausewitz, Influence of Seapower Upon History (Mahan), and of course Sun Tzu.
While some are more specific than others (Musashi is actually about
swordsmanship specifically, but conflict generally) they all have insightful
things to teach.

For a broader discussion look at Bobbitt's Shield of Achilles. He still has a
significant portion on conflict, however it is also a discussion on the
interplay of technology, legal development, and conflict.

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nyan_sandwich
On the cause and mitigation of collapses, my humble opinion is that a culture
of technical ambition and inquiry is likely to be as important as specific
knowledge.

You might want to look at what kinds of people (culturally and ethnically) are
behind most innovation and engineering, and look at the differences and
influences there. (It may be interesting to look at the historical trend of
their power, as well, for futurological purposes.) If the culture that
produces civilization stays around through a collapse, there probably is less
to worry about than if that culture doesn't survive.

Thus among your important books may be some of the books of industrial
_culture_ , like Atlas Shrugged, most good science fiction, some enlightenment
philosophy and poetry, Paul Graham's writing, etc.

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a3n
Great question. I suspect that any references would not be immediately useful.
The collapse would be slow and chaotic, we'd probably go through something
like the dark ages, and then rebuild partly on salvaged historical references
and mostly on immediate need and ingenuity.

~~~
hkarthik
> Collapse would slow and chaotic

Unless a comet or asteroid hit the earth. Here's some good sci-fi reading for
you: [http://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-Jerry-
Pournelle/dp/044...](http://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-Jerry-
Pournelle/dp/0449208133)

~~~
a3n
Could happen, obviously.

But whether it's cosmically sudden or self-inflicted, we'll likely be more
concerned with the fast or slow moving catastrophe than with future
generation, and the Time Traveler's three books aren't going to matter when
it's eat or be eaten. Once a collapse happens I think we have to play through
the whole cycle.

Speaking of fiction, I've always liked this as an exploration of how society
would respond to a collapse:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Abides](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Abides)

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makerops
Not a book, but a good addition:

[http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs.php](http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs.php)

~~~
iand
Great resource thanks!

