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 Knowledgedescribes 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 inThe Knowledgeas well as things we have yet to discover.The Knowledgeis 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."
Show moreHow 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 Knowledgedescribes 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 inThe Knowledgeas well as things we have yet to discover.The Knowledgeis 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."
Show moreDr. Lewis Dartnell is a UK Space Agency research fellow at the University of Leicester and writes regularly for New Scientist, BBC Focus, BBC Sky at Night, Cosmos, as well as newspapers including The Times, The Guardian, and The New York Times. He has won several awards, including the Daily Telegraph Young Science Writer Award. He also makes regular TV appearances and has been featured on BBC Horizon, Stargazing Live, Sky at Night, and numerous times on Discovery and the Science channel. His scientific research is in the field of astrobiology he works on how microorganisms might survive on the surface of Mars and the best ways to detect signs of ancient Martian life. He is thirty-two years old.
Wall Street Journal:
“‘The Knowledge" is a fascinating look at the basic principles of
the most important technologies undergirding modern society… a fun
read full of optimism about human ingenuity.”
Boston Globe:
“[Dartnell’s] plans may anticipate the destruction of our world,
but embedded in them is the hope that there might be a better way
to live in the pre-apocalyptic world we inhabit right now.”
New York Post:
“A stimulating read, a grand thought experiment on re-engineering
the food, housing, clothing, heat, clean water and every other
building block of civilization.”
Booklist:
“Dartnell’s vision is a great start in understanding what it took
to build our world.”
The Times:
“This book is an extraordinary achievement. With lucidity and
brevity, Dartnell explains the rudiments of a civilisation. It is a
great read even if civilisation does not collapse. If it does, it
will be the sacred text of the new world — Dartnell that world’s
first great prophet.”
The Independent:
“The Knowledge is premised on an ingenious sleight of hand.
Ostensibly a manual on rebuilding our technological life-support
system after a global catastrophe, it is actually a glorious
compendium of the knowledge we have lost in the living; the origins
of the material fabric of our actual, unapocalyptic lives....The
most inspiring book I’ve read in a long time.”
The Guardian:
“The Knowledge is a terrifically engrossing history of science and
technology.... [A] cunningly packaged yet entertainingly serious
essay in the history of practical ideas.”
Times Higher Education:
“A whirlwind tour of the history of human endeavour in terms of
scientific and technological discovery.... Readers will certainly
come away better informed, more knowledgeable about, and hopefully
more interested in the fundamental science and technology necessary
to rebuild a civilised society.”
The Daily Mail:
“Dartnell’s guide to surviving the apocalypse is as breezy and
engaging as it is informative. I now know exactly what I’m going to
do as soon as a mushroom cloud appears on the horizon. Leap in my
golf cart and go straight round to Dartnell’s place.”
The Observer:
“A crash course in the scientific fundamentals underpinning
modern-day living. The Knowledge impresses as a condensed history
of scientific progress, and will pique curiosity among readers who
regret daydreaming throughout school chemistry lessons.”
New Statesman:
“A crash course in the scientific fundamentals underpinning
modern-day living. The Knowledge impresses as a condensed history
of scientific progress, and will pique curiosity among readers who
regret daydreaming throughout school chemistry lessons.”
Nature:
“The ultimate do-it-yourself guide to ‘rebooting’ human
civilization. With scientific nous, Dartnell depicts probable
environmental scenarios on a stricken Earth and offers putative
survivors instruction in the technologies needed to craft a culture
from the ground up. Many will thrill to this reminder of our
species’ prodigious resilience.”
Seth Mnookin, New York Times bestselling author of The Panic Virus
and associate director of MIT's Graduate Program in Science
Writing:
“A marvelously astounding work: In one graceful swoop, Lewis
Dartnell takes our multi-layered, interconnected modern world,
shows how fragile its scaffolding is, and then lays out a how-to
guide for starting over from scratch. Imagine Zombieland told by
Neil deGrasse Tyson and you'll get some sense of what a delight The
Knowledge is to read.”
Ken MacLeod, author of Intrusion and Descent:
“Dartnell makes the technology and science of everyday life in our
civilization fascinating and understandable. This book may or may
not save your life but it'll certainly make it more interesting.
This is the book we all wish we'd been given at school: the
knowledge that makes everything else make sense."
Roger Highfield, journalist, author, and Science Museum
executive:
“For all those terrified by runaway climate change,
super-eruptions, planet-killer asteroids, doomsday viruses, nuclear
terrorism and absolute domination by super-intelligent machines,
Lewis Dartnell has written a long-overdue guide to what you should
do after the apocalypse: an illuminating and entertaining vision of
how to reboot life, civilization and everything. Dartnell’s vision
of the survival of the smartest in a post-apocalyptic world offers
a remarkable and panoramic view of how civilization actually
works.”
S. M. Stirling, New York Times bestselling author of The Given
Sacrifice:
"This book is useful if civilization collapses, and entertaining if
it doesn't. After the cometary impact it may save your life, and if
it doesn't at least you'll know why you perished."
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