The Knowledge: How To Rebuild Civilization In The Aftermath Of A Cataclysm
A new Mad Max is coming out in 2015. Time to think about what to do if society goes that badly to hell. The trouble is education. Without high schools and universities the generation after shtf is going to be morrons. There’s no two ways about it. The uneducated children post-shtf will become adults who know nothing about mining coal, building transistors, or even fixing a roof.
So this guy, Lewis Dartnell, was like: “well somebody should write a book on how to build from scratch the tools we use everyday.” And so he set out to do just that.
Now lets be clear a book containing detailed instructions on building so much as a modern day toothbrush from scratch would probably be more than 1000 pages, since it would have to cover the making of plastic, which in turn would have to cover the mining of oil, which in turn would have to cover the making of barrels, which in turn … well you get the idea: we need shortcuts.
So Dartnell drastically revised the scope of his book and wrote 300 pages on the high level knowledge of building the stuff we need everyday from scratch. The book is called The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch and is written in such a way that a group of people applying trial and error would get the job done eventually.
It covers strategic knowledge on food, clothes, soap, medicine, mining, chemistry, electricity, and building radios. The stuff you need to know in order to make decisions for your group or your community about what resources to get, when to get ‘m and where. And how to use ‘m once you’ve got ‘m. This book could easily be called: “How To Maintain Our Current Quality Of Life as a Society, For Dummies”.
I like the book. It’s a bit dense at times but it’s interesting in giving me knowledge of things I wouldn’t otherwise have come across. If there’s a change you will ever lead a group of people after a world-wide catastrophic shtf and you want more than survival e.g. to rebuild and to thrive, read a copy of The Knowledge and keep that knowledge with you for decision time.
Note that this article was updated on 25 August 2016 to refer to the reprint edition of the book originally titled The Knowledge: How To Rebuild Our World From Scratch.