The Knowledge

How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm

paperback, 352 pages

English language

Published March 10, 2015 by Penguin Books.

ISBN:
978-0-14-312704-8
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4 stars (12 reviews)

"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 …

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Review of 'The Knowledge' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

The introduction does speculate a little about different types of apocalypse, but settles on a viral pandemic as our final foe. This would leave survivors the advantage of a fairly intact infrastructure whilst they find their feet as well as little competition for resources.

The book is split into sections dealing with aspects such as agriculture, medicine, power, construction and more advance scientific methods. It’s not just a survival guide but a reminder of how much we take for granted. Josh had recently shown me the TED Talk for the guy who tried to build a toaster from scratch. Just knowing how it works is not enough but you need to know how to mine and extract the base materials required first. This book is very much on that premise, how even simple things will be much more difficult.

The earlier chapters do deal with scavenging and making the most …

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