3 books to rebuild civilization

In My Humble Opinion
1

Watched the 1960 version of The Time Machine together with Time Machine 2000. In the 1960 version, the hero goes back forward in time to help the future rebuild civilization after whupping the morlocks. His housekeeper and best friend notice that he’s taken three books with him.

If you were going to rebuild civilization, which three books would you take?

2

  1. Latest copy of the Information Please Almanac.

  2. A copy of The Handy Science Answer Book

  3. And for the last one…don’t know. Maybe the U.S. Army Wilderness Survival Manual?

That should do it…I’ll leave the development of philosophy, art, theology, etc. To better people than I. To quote Chard, “I came here to build a bridge, that’s all.”

3

How to Pick up Women would be useful if the planet needed repopulating.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, so that, hundreds of years in the future, our original creation myth won’t contribute to millions of wasted hours in court battles, demonstrations, etc.

The revised edition of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells with an epilogue about how the rebuilding of civilization went which I would check periodically to see if I’m making any mistakes.

4
  1. Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (so they’d be able to discuss what to do),
  2. Collected works of Wm Shakespeare (so they’d know who they were and who we were),
  3. Wisden (so they’d know what to do in their spare time).
5
  1. The Columbia Encyclopedia
  2. Complete works of Shakespeare
  3. ???
6
  1. The Bible (maybe a version with the original Hebrew/Greek on one side and an English (or whatever language is being spoken) translation on the other side)
  2. Boy Scout Manual (does that have a title?)
  3. Some sort of anthology of literature (can all the Norton Editions count as one book?)
7

The Farmer’s Almanac
History of Western Philosophy
The Fountainhead