# Send a Book Back In Time! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 21, 2002, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044 "2002-05-21T04:06:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/1 "2002-05-21T04:06:28Z")
Okay, here’s the deal. You are allowed to send ONE book back in time. The goal is to have the maximum positive effect on mankind. Which book would you send, and to what era? (i.e. you wouldn’t want to send a calculus text back 3000 years, because other fundamentals of learning weren’t in place yet). Obvious candidates might be _Grays Anatomy_, sent back 1000 years or so. Or an engineering reference guide. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/2 "2002-05-21T04:16:33Z")
A book about the halocaust to the early ninteen thirties? ---
**Author:** ![DPWhite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d26b3c/32.png) [@DPWhite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPWhite)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/3 "2002-05-21T05:33:54Z")
Darwin’s Origin of Species to the beginning of the Rennaisance ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/4 "2002-05-21T05:43:39Z")
Would the people receiving the book know it was from the future? Or would they think it was from their present? This is an important detail. I would send **1984** back to the 1950’s. If people had read that book way back then, maybe things like government cameras on street corners and extreme political correctness would not be a reality. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/5 "2002-05-21T05:54:41Z")
I’m not sure if this an attempted “whoosh”, but sending a copy of _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ back to the 1950s would be kinda pointless, since the book was published in 1948. Sending some of Louis Pasteur’s work on germ theory back to pre-Black Death Europe might have allowed them to bypass that whole icky Dark Ages thing. ---
**Author:** ![MrVisible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@MrVisible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrVisible)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/6 "2002-05-21T05:57:51Z")
I’d send Seneca’s piece on the destruction of the Library of Alexandria back to about 310 b.c. I wouldn’t want to interfere too much by introducing advanced technologies, but I’d love to see what would have happened to civilization if that trove of information had survived. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/7 "2002-05-21T06:05:05Z")
MrVisible wrote: > [@](#): > > I wouldn’t want to interfere too much by introducing advanced technologies, To hell with that. I’d send back a complete manual on gunpowder making and firearms construction. And I’d send it to the ancient Phoenicians, so that Rome would lose the Punic Wars, **just** to see what happens! Ha! ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/8 "2002-05-21T06:07:00Z")
I’m shocked, _shocked_, that none of you has suggested sending back the [Holy Scripture](https://securesite.chireader.com/cgi-bin/dopestore/buystuff.bat). Heathens. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/9 "2002-05-21T06:08:12Z")
I might send a recent book about government back to the Founding Fathers, so they could see how well various aspects of their Constitution worked. Then they could write a different Constitution that worked even better. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/10 "2002-05-21T06:08:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > **I’m not sure if this an attempted “whoosh”, but sending a copy of _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ back to the 1950s would be kinda pointless, since the book was published in 1948.** I was being sarcastic at our present state of society. ---
**Author:** ![everettmeyer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/2bfe46/32.png) [@everettmeyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everettmeyer)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/11 "2002-05-21T06:32:24Z")
I would send a book telling the story of the whole alien/ govt. conspiracy regarding Rosswell to July 1, 1947. This would give American’s about a week to go and check it out first hand. Two results: 1) the whole story is out in the open now. OR 2) a bunch of dead Americans in the desert that we now are trying to get to the bottom of. You chose. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/12 "2002-05-21T08:19:01Z")
Send a copy of _The Two Towers_ back to a young JRR Tolkein with a note: “Hey, J, this is gonna piss people off. Call it ‘The Buildings that were Far Apart and Totally Opposite’.” ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/13 "2002-05-21T13:13:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MEBuckner \* > \*\*I’m shocked, _shocked_, that none of you has suggested sending back the [Holy Scripture](https://securesite.chireader.com/cgi-bin/dopestore/buystuff.bat). > > Heathens. \*\* Hey, good idea. Let’s send it back to when some Jews said something like:’ Hmm, maybe we should start writing some of this stuff down.’ (around 600 BC ?) They might be thouroughly shocked,_shocked_ , to see what they started has turned into. Maybe a copy of the Koran would do even better. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/14 "2002-05-21T13:34:29Z")
So many choices, so much time. Six place trigonometry tables to Kepler? A good set of navigation charts to Eric the Red? Translate the SAS survival manual into Celtic? Oh, no, wait, they didn’t have a written language. The further back you go, the harder it is to provide a book that anyone would recognize as a source of important information. Give the Picts a book on archery, they might have thrown it at the Celts, but they certainly wouldn’t have used to make bows and arrows. The information in a basic practical nursing course would revolutionize almost any Paleolithic tribe, but writing is not going to give them the information, and even having it falls a bit short of believing and using it. Latin texts would be readable in much of Europe, over a very long time, but the reception of the information is still a highly variable thing. Translating the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics into Latin is probably a whole thread. A good basic electronics text, sent to Benjamin Franklin is an interesting thought, though. He had the type of mind that would use it for a starting point, and slog on through for years. You wouldn’t have to translate it, although he might have some trouble with modern American English. Just saying “a book about germ theory” isn’t really enough. Which book? A twenty-first century text about infectious disease doesn’t spend much time on the concept of microbe existence, or the methods of identifying microorganisms. In the time of Pasteur, there were damned few people to whom it would not be incomprehensible. I suppose if you could ignore the translation problem altogether, a basic high school hygiene course delivered to almost any small early tribal culture could be the most effective in achieving major change, but it would be almost impossible to predict the nature of the change. They Boy Scout Manual could have made a difference, in a lot of times and places. Tris ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/15 "2002-05-21T14:33:27Z")
I’d send a copy of Harry Potter back to a teenage **yojimbo** so I could publish it and make a fortune. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/16 "2002-05-21T14:45:40Z")
Latro, you have been “whoooshed” but good. Click the link. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/17 "2002-05-21T15:03:28Z")
Hehehe. ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/18 "2002-05-21T15:13:23Z")
I’d send the [Handbook of Chemistry & Physics](http://www.hbcpnetbase.com/hbcp/) back three, four hundred years. Give the Scientific Revolution a bit of a boost. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/19 "2002-05-21T16:14:33Z")
MEBuckner wrote: > [@](#): > > I’m shocked, _shocked_, that none of you has suggested sending back the [Holy Scripture](https://securesite.chireader.com/cgi-bin/dopestore/buystuff.bat). The Teeming Millions coffee mug? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044/20 "2002-05-21T17:58:06Z")
This is a really great question because the decision is so tough. There could be unforseen ramifications when your book arrives. It might arrive, or somehow make its way, into the wrong hands. A copy of _Gray’s Anatomy_ or _The Origin of Species_ sent to the wrong people at the wrong place could bring disasterous results. I mean, you think the Inquisition was bad before, imagine that it’s underpinned by sure knowledge that men in the future will be uncontrollably heretical. As is so often true, mere knowledge might not make the world a better place. So, if it’s okay, I’d like to add a specific person to send it to, and I think what I’d do is send the New Testament to Jesus when He was, oh say, twenty-eight years old. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/send-a-book-back-in-time/110044.md?page=2)