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The Knowledge: How To Rebuild Our World After An Apocalypse Paperback – March 5, 2015

by Lewis Dartnell (Author)

184 customer reviews

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How would you go about rebuilding a technological society from scratch? If our technological society collapsed tomorrow, perhaps from a viral pandemic or catastrophic asteroid impact, what would be the one book you would want to press into the hands of the postapocalyptic survivors? What crucial knowledge would they need to survive in the immediate aftermath and to rebuild civilization as quickly as possible-a guide for rebooting the world? Human knowledge is collective, distributed across the population. It has built on itself for centuries, becoming vast and increasingly specialized. Most of us are ignorant about the fundamental principles of the civilization that supports us, happily utilizing the latest-or even the most basic-technology without having the slightest idea of why it works or how it came to be. If you had to go back to absolute basics, like some sort of postcataclysmic Robinson Crusoe, would you know how to re-create an internal combustion engine, put together a microscope, get metals out of rock, accurately tell time, weave fibers into clothing, or even how to produce food for yourself? Regarded as one of the brightest young scientists of his generation, Lewis Dartnell proposes that the key to preserving civilization in an apocalyptic scenario is to provide a quickstart guide, adapted to cataclysmic circumstances. The Knowledge describes many of the modern technologies we employ, but first it explains the fundamentals upon which they are built. Every piece of technology rests on an enormous support network of other technologies, all interlinked and mutually dependent. You can't hope to build a radio, for example, without understanding how to acquire the raw materials it requires, as well as generate the electricity needed to run it. But Dartnell doesn't just provide specific information for starting over; he also reveals the greatest invention of them all-the phenomenal knowledge-generating machine that is the scientific method itself. This would allow survivors to learn technological advances not explicitly explored in The Knowledge as well as things we have yet to discover. The Knowledge is a brilliantly original guide to the fundamentals of science and how it built our modern world as well as a thought experiment about the very idea of scientific knowledge itself.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Editorial Reviews

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Dartnell, a UK Space Agency research fellow and award-winning science writer, specializes in the field of astrobiology, including how microorganisms could survive on Mars. It’s no wonder, then, that this renowned young scientist is fascinated by survival tactics, the underlying theme of this ambitious inquiry into how people might be able to rebuild the world as we know it if an apocalypse came to pass. As much as any writer could cover the history of technology in 300 pages, Dartnell presents a good case. His account quickly progresses from raising crops to making soap, shearing and spinning wool, mining coal, generating electricity, and building radios. Of course, since this is all speculation, it’s hard to predict what people would be able to scavenge and what will be left intact or who might be on earth besides yourself. Dartnell doesn’t address questions of governing this survivors’ society or how people would collaborate on rebuilding or how hopeless some will feel without Google and smartphones. Still, Dartnell’s vision is a great start in understanding what it took to build our world. --Laurie Borman --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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"A wake-up call, encouraging us to leave our comfort zone and learn the basics of caring for ourselves in a disaster and it's aftermath." ---Mixed Media Reviews --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product details

Paperback
Publisher: Vintage (March 5, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0099575833
ISBN-13: 978-0099575832
Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.9 x 7.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 184 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,392,587 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Ash

Misleading title.

September 16, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

What I was looking for was a book about 'how to rebuild our world from scratch'.
A series of 'this is how to build a fire', 'this is how to identify iron-bearing rocks', 'this is how to smelt iron', 'this is how to build a steam engine, etc.

The book instead is a series of chapters describing problems that one facing the rebuilding of civilization would face with no solutions. For example it describes how post-1800s farming requires industrial nitrogen fixing and how not having that is an issue, without providing a solution.

This book is a good starting point for research, but is not what I was hoping for.

57 people found this helpful

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Gary Mauser

A fascinating and easy to read travelogue of how our technical and scientific civilization was created. Buy this book!

January 11, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Well written and fascinating. I read it cover to cover. I put it next to my throne and it captivated me unreservedly! I don't plan to rebuild civilization anytime soon, but I enjoyed discovering how the scientific principles of our complex industrial world were discovered, and then learning how the technology was developed that underlies modern civilization.
I'm filled with awe at the brilliant people who have built our modern civilization.
I heartily recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand how the things we take for granted actually work, or who wish to appreciate what amazing ingenuity went into developing our present civilization.
I bought a copy and sent it to my brother, who also reported enjoying it.

3 people found this helpful

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NC Review

Excellent Book - Very Informative

April 9, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is a very informative book with a lot of fascinating detail. It is basically a thought experiment. If most of humanity was wiped out in the morning and a handful of people remained, could they survive and rebuild modern technology? To determine this, Dartnell looks how these technologies were originally developed and any possible short cuts which the survivors could take.

The ‘apocalypse’ itself described in book was very clinical but this book is not meant to be a blow-by-blow instruction manual. I couldn’t see survivors sitting around it deciding what to do on Day 24. However, it does contain a lot of high level technological insight that a post-apocalyptic Edison or Pasteur might find useful and could spend years of their lives trying to leverage.

The book is apolitical. Its focus is the technology. If you need advice on how to hang on to your post-apocalyptic fiefdom, consult Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and other experts in such matters. Oh, the book doesn’t cover killing zombies either.

Some readers might find the advanced chemistry section a bit of a drudge, but I can’t see how Dartnell could avoid that, given leaving it out would undermine the book’s purpose. On the flip side, it provides useful context for any fledgling chemistry students.

The footnotes throughout the book are consistently very interesting. I think any writer interested in world building would find the book very useful.

One thing to note is that the book is shorter than it appears. About the last 20% is filled with references, including a useful list of relevant fiction.

One final word of advice. If you want to tuck this away for the apocalypse, so you can amaze the other survivors with your scientific knowhow, remember to buy the paperback, not the ebook. Unless you’re really sure you can get those generators up and running.

5 people found this helpful

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SDM

An eye opening and fun read.

February 20, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Quite a fun read for me. I think you would like this if you are curious about how things work. It is not a "survivalist" book. It is a book designed to inform people about how little we understand the foundations of our technology. I think we often are unaware of the actually brilliant efforts our ancestors made just to get us to the level of production we take for granted today. I sometimes get the impression from peers that they think people in the past were kind of dumb not to have cell phones and microwave popcorn. But the people saying that are completely ignorant of the complex path of development we have taken and would be hopeless about even how to begin to do these things if they had to start from scratch. So... a good book for those interested in the history of technology; but also a good book for the reader of science fiction as these concepts tie in with many works of that genre in an indirect way. It was well written and edited.

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