Last night I was catching up on my reading and came across a snippet in the New Scientist: the winners in a competition to invent the books the world needs most. Top of the list was a suggestion by Gisli Bjorn Heimisson of Iceland, for a compendium of the skills necessary to restart civilisation after the apocalypse.
So I thought we could play a game. Let’s build that book. What skills should be in it? Making fire. Making bricks. Keeping pigs. How to sow, weed, cut, thresh etc. wheat. How to skin and gut small animals. How to sow harvest prepare and use flax/linen. How to spin and weave wool. How to make books and ink. And–to me–of vital importance, all you need to know about building sewage and irrigation systems.
What else? What would we need to rebuild civilisation?
You'd need a staged plan. Many, many skills would be irrelevant until you had a population of a certain size and an agrarian base. Also, your question assumes we have civilization. I think if we had to do it over again, we might do it better if we kept the right books. For instance, I think racism would decline dramatically if everyone read _Guns, Germs, and Steel_.
There used to be an amazing series of books that basically covered the how-to of everything you would need from blacksmithing, agriculture, woodworking, well-digging, etc. I cannot for the life of me find a reference to this series after more googling than I should really do while at work…
How to build a still and make mash.
Food preservation: salting, pickling, etc.
Remember, eating kimchi gives you immunity to bird flu.
I always say, when asked what technology I'd bring back in time with me: Stirrups. That, & barbed wire. Man, you could really eff up history by jumping those simple inventions forward. Oh, & milk. Milk for orphans. Took a ridiculously long time for that to catch on.
My RPG setting is partially based on the idea of “what if simple, intuitive technology that wasn't invented until recently had sprung up 1000s of years earlier?”
Lists of what plants are edible or can be used medicinally, since it might be hard to find volunteers for finding out the hard way ;-)
I'm with LL, which is why I learned those very skills. Also, I can make wine from scratch :D I figure that we'll eat and drink and hide from the roving bands of cannibals.
Knowledge of germ theory, hygiene basics in medicine: to have people know to boil water and wash their hands and instruments, to prevent the innumerable deaths of women in childbirth from infections spread by doctors, or loss of limbs from scrapes and cuts, or transmission of pathogens, and all of that. Knowledge of reproduction biology, internal human anatomy and so forth, to keep superstitions about menstruation as a curse and homunculus at bay. Pasteurisation of animal milk. Etc.
Agricultural knowledge will depend on the region and climate where the rebuilding would take place for its specifics. Medical data would be useful anywhere.
Hey Bluejack, I think the series you are referring to might be the FOXFIRE books? My mom had the first three (I think there are a dozen!) back when I was a kid. They were how-to references for agri-hippies, but I pored over them for different reasons, imagining just this post-apocalyptic scenario. Lots of handy info… I especially remember the parts on how to make a plain wood coffin and set up a beehive. The skill I'd love to add to a post-apoc manual is how to keep a cow healthy and producing milk.
Foxfire! Yeah! Okay, that's what I want for my birthday: a complete set of Foxfire books.
My vote for 3 things: soap, fire, and sewage/irrigation.
Paper making. Decimal notation math.
You know, this is covered in “Lest Darkness Fall.” That was 'prevent Rome from slipping into the Dark Ages,' so the question isn't quite the same.
I do remember that paper making features, as does double entry book-keeping and the newspaper. Other details are hazy, as I read the book a long time ago.
@Therese — I kept honey bees for a while. Because of mites and other bee diseases and predators, beekeeping has become a really complicated endeavor — not at all like when my grandfather kept bees during the Depression. There are some predictions that honey bees will be an extinct species by mid-century…
@Nicola — the Foxfire books are excellent resources for what life was like in the southern Appalachians pre-Great Depression. (For your next novel, perhaps?) Mother Earth News has more practical advice on homesteading these days. http://www.motherearthnews.com
Uh, “Lest Darkness Fall” sounds AWESOME?
Just remember that the apocalypse has happened before to other species. The thing we will need most is good nutrition so we can work, think, and resist disease. Apparently, the best way is not to interbreed.
I haven't been able to find a reference to this book outside of the New Scientist, and alas I've already recycled the relevant issue. Anyone got an ISBN?