The Knowledge, Lewis Dartnell
The Knowledge, Lewis Dartnell
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The Knowledge
How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch

Author: Lewis Dartnell

Narrator: John Lee

Unabridged: 8 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/17/2014


Synopsis

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.

About Lewis Dartnell

Lewis Dartnell graduated from Oxford University with a degree in biology and completed his PhD at University College London. He is currently a UK Space Agency research fellow at the University of Leicester, working in the field of astrobiology and the search for microbial life on Mars. Lewis also holds a STFC Science in Society Fellowship. The author of Life in the Universe and My Tourist Guide to the Solar System, he has won several awards for his science writing and outreach work.


Reviews

I read a lot of "Prepper" books, and in general, a lot of apocalyptic literature. This one was a quick read, because it sucked. Dartnell had the kernel of a good idea, but then lost steam about 50 pages into the book, and what he filled the remaining 250 with was a stretch. Good points: explaining ho......more

Goodreads review by Thomas

This book is going to need two reviews: The first – would I want this book to be in my library should the world end? I’m afraid the answer is no. while certainly this book is cleverly researched, packed with information, and the subject matter carefully chosen (or at least with some sort of system, a......more

Goodreads review by Tim

A rather disappointing book, 'The Knowledge' purports to give us the basics for the survival of civilisation in the wake of an apocalypse based on some slightly dubious assumptions about what actually survives of humanity and in what condition. And that is the problem with the book - it is a thought......more

Goodreads review by Juliana

I picked this up after reading Station Eleven a fictional account of a group of global Pandemic survivors. It is essentially a how-to book on what you need to know in order to survive and reboot our world if that Pandemic or other event happens. As a former editor for how-to technology books I give......more