# Rebuilding civilization **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 24, 2015, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839 "2015-03-24T04:58:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/1 "2015-03-24T04:58:02Z")
The end of the world as we know it is coming. Lots of people will die and civilization will collapse. What books will you buy to fend off the coming Dark Age? I suggest we start with Encyclopedia Britannica, the Harvard Classics, and the Foxfire books, but there must be more. Don’t worry about expense; this is for humanity, and the anticipated end of the world is the perfect time to max out your credit cards. ---
**Author:** ![CaptainAmerica\_1987](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@CaptainAmerica\_1987](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptainAmerica_1987)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/2 "2015-03-24T05:20:34Z")
Why rebuild it? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/3 "2015-03-24T05:29:50Z")
I’ve read that if the entirety of humanity on Earth got bombed back to the stone age, there would be no possibility of ever rebuilding civilization to the point we have now. The argument is that we’ve already used up too much of non-renewable resources to ever be able to repeat all that. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/4 "2015-03-24T05:42:09Z")
> [@CaptainAmerica\_1987](#): > > Why rebuild it? Because it’s a good thing. Civilization has a future; barbarism does not. > [@Senegoid](#): > > I’ve read that if the entirety of humanity on Earth got bombed back to the stone age, there would be no possibility of ever rebuilding civilization to the point we have now. The argument is that we’ve already used up too much of non-renewable resources to ever be able to repeat all that. There’s something to that, but I think a low-yield, slow, sustainable path could exist. It would take longer, and we’d hit a long pause in the “steampunk” epoch. It would be harder to get a new information age functioning. And, okay, it might be impossible…but I think that’s a long way from proven. ---
**Author:** ![Foggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foggy/32/1082_2.png) [@Foggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foggy)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/5 "2015-03-24T05:43:38Z")
Any DIY books. How to build things, grow stuff, repair things, make beer/wine, raise animals, first aid, accounting, record keeping, writing really good fanfic, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/6 "2015-03-24T08:45:58Z")
One of the post-War editions of the Pears Cyclopedia… ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/7 "2015-03-24T09:39:12Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > I’ve read that if the entirety of humanity on Earth got bombed back to the stone age, there would be no possibility of ever rebuilding civilization to the point we have now. The argument is that we’ve already used up too much of non-renewable resources to ever be able to repeat all that. Between hydropower, the Fischer–Tropsch process, rationing, and careful planning, we’d be able to bootstrap a production center that simply recreates the main technologies of today, so that we could start building a renewable-based infrastructure. We would probably just target skipping the fossil fuel age and jumping right back to battery-powered vehicles. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/8 "2015-03-24T10:14:07Z")
I’d like to see some of the Oral History from the 1800’s and 1900’s that had been recorded and put into book format. So that people could get a sense of what day to day life was like before we had the big technological boom of the second half of the 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![Winston\_Smith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e95f7d/32.png) [@Winston\_Smith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Smith)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/9 "2015-03-24T12:01:52Z")
A book on foraging and a survival guide (it’s not like I’m personally going to re-launch the space program or get the mobile communications infrastructure up and running). ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/10 "2015-03-24T12:08:56Z")
A bunch of good medical/surgical texts. With everyone rebuilding, there are going to be some injuries. We will always have illnesses. Also books on making anesthetics, painkillers, antibiotics, and so on. I, for one, don’t want to go back to pre-anesthetic surgery. I recently read a horrific first-person description of a 17th-century woman having a cancerous breast removed; her description of the event includes recounting the feeling of the knife scraping against her ribs. _shudder_ ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/11 "2015-03-24T12:10:51Z")
Oh, and books on how to make looms and sewing machines. I don’t relish the notion of making sheets, towels, and clothing without any mechanical assistance. Um, does anyone know how to work metal? \*\*Serious question: For this supposition, do we get to forage in the scraps of previous civilization? \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Moonlitherial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/12 "2015-03-24T13:10:42Z")
Coming April 17th to a book store near you! [The Knowledge](http://www.amazon.ca/The-Knowledge-Rebuild-World-Scratch/dp/159420523X) Lets just hope the end of the world waits a few weeks. ---
**Author:** ![moldmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ee59a6/32.png) [@moldmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moldmonkey)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/13 "2015-03-24T14:07:18Z")
Machinery’s Handbook-preferably an earlier edition. This has been the “bible” of machinists & mechanical engineers for around a hundred years. Marks Handbook-Another engineering reference. Heat Treating-Bill Bryson Backyard Blacksmith-Lorelai Sims Mark Aspery’s Skills of a Blacksmith Vols 1-3-while they are designed for ornamental work, they do show step-by-step with good pictures how to make many things. Great books. The Self-Sufficient Life by John Seymour. Great book for homesteading. Encyclopedia of Plants and Encyclopedia of Gardening Techniques-American Horticultural Society ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/14 "2015-03-24T14:09:51Z")
A book on making vaccines. I don’t want people to die of measles/mumps/smallpox/pneumonia in the New Eden. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/15 "2015-03-24T15:08:46Z")
> [@GrumpyBunny](#): > > \*\*Serious question: For this supposition, do we get to forage in the scraps of previous civilization? \*\* Yes. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/16 "2015-03-24T16:50:35Z")
The most used reference text at our house is [Country Wisdom and Know-how](http://www.amazon.com/Country-Know-How-Editors-Publishings-Bulletins/dp/1579123686/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427215731&sr=1-1&keywords=country+wisdom+and+know+how), Gardening, cooking, husbandry, maintenance, building, _everything_ is in that book. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/17 "2015-03-24T18:26:30Z")
Probably some of the Foxfire books-especially the first couple. They’re essentially written-down oral histories of how things were done prior to modern convenience. They describe what was essentially a very deprived 19th century lifestyle. ---
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/18 "2015-03-24T18:42:14Z")
Books like [THE AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE from 1841.](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28452/28452-h/28452-h.htm) and others like it. I have two or three of these at home. they give you recipes for everything from pot pie to glue and have instructions for butchery, food preservation and making dyes and soaps. I also have a stack of pamphlets from the USDA from the 40s-60s that give best practices for everything from raising chickens to crop rotation. I’d take those along as well. Without technology you would need to start from the raw materials so you better have references that take you from plant, animal or mineral to finished product. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/19 "2015-03-24T21:37:30Z")
I’ll be sure to download a Mrs. Beeton’s… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839/20 "2015-03-24T22:09:08Z")
> [@Moonlitherial](#): > > Coming April 17th to a book store near you! [The Knowledge](http://www.amazon.ca/The-Knowledge-Rebuild-World-Scratch/dp/159420523X) > > Lets just hope the end of the world waits a few weeks. That book was released April 17, 2014. So the world can end as soon as it’s ready. It’s an excellent book incidentally and I recommend it. I believe the author is an occasional poster on this board. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebuilding-civilization/715839.md?page=2)