Lewis Dartnell - The Knowledge - How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. 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, and Cosmos, as well as for newspapers including the (London) 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 the Discovery and Science channels. His scientific research is in the field of astrobiology, focusing on how microorganisms might survive on the surface of Mars and the best ways to detect signs of ancient Martian life.

Praise for The Knowledge

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.

The Wall Street Journal

[Dartnells] 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.

The Boston Globe

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.

Nature

The Knowledge is kin to the way things work books of the artist-writer David Macauley, showing how complex the makings of civilizationthe engines, the infrastructure, all the things we take for grantedreally are.... [It] will prove a valuable owners guide for a difficult but not impossible future.

Kirkus Reviews

Dartnells vision is a great start in understanding what it took to build our world.

Booklist

This book is an extraordinary achievement. With lucidity and brevity, Dartnell explains the rudiments of a civilization. It is a great read even if civilization does not collapse. If it does, it will be the sacred text of the new worldDartnell that worlds first great prophet.

The Times (London)

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 Ive read in a long time.

The Independent (London)

The Knowledge is a terrifically engrossing history of science and technology.... A cunningly packaged yet entertainingly serious essay in the history of practical ideas.

The Guardian (London)

A whirlwind tour of the history of human endeavor 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 civilized society.

Times Higher Education (London)

A hymn to human ingenuity, charting how we have taken control of the planet, engineered solutions to the many problems that plagued us as we developed modern societies, and learned to beat our microbial assailants to live ever longer lives. Yet it is more than that. It is a manual for rebuilding society in the face of collapse.

New Statesman (London)

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.

The Observer (London)

A whistle-stop tour of the history of science and technology... full of those oh! moments, when you think, well, I never thought of that before.

The Telegraph (UK)

Dartnells guide to surviving the apocalypse is as breezy and engaging as it is informative. I now know exactly what Im going to do as soon as a mushroom cloud appears on the horizon. Leap in my golf cart and go straight round to Dartnells place.

Daily Mail (London)

An eye-opener... The Knowledge is an amazing checklist of human discovery.

GeekDad

A marvelously astounding work: In one graceful swoop, Lewis Dartnell takes our multilayered, 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 youll get some sense of what a delight The Knowledge is to read.

Seth Mnookin, New York Times bestselling author of The Panic Virus and associate director of MITs graduate program in science writing

For all those terrified by runaway climate change, supereruptions, planet-killer asteroids, doomsday viruses, nuclear terrorism, and absolute domination by superintelligent 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. Dartnells vision of the survival of the smartest in a postapocalyptic world offers a remarkable and panoramic view of how civilization actually works.

Roger Highfield, journalist, author, and Science Museum (London) executive

This book is useful if civilization collapses, and entertaining if it doesnt. After the cometary impact it may save your life, and if it doesnt at least youll know why you perished.

S. M. Stirling, New York Times bestselling author of The Given Sacrifice

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 itll certainly make it more interesting. This is the book we all wish wed been given at school: The Knowledge that makes everything else make sense.

Ken MacLeod, author of Intrusion and Descent

PENGUIN BOOKS

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street

New York, New York 10014

penguin.com

First published in the United States of America by The Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2014

Published in Penguin Books 2015

Copyright 2014 by Lewis Dartnell

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

The Credits page constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Dartnell, Lewis.

The knowledge : how to rebuild our world from scratch / Lewis Dartnell.

pages cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-698-15165-9 (e-book)

1. TechnologyPopular works. 2. Discoveries in sciencePopular works. 3. SurvivalPopular works. 4. Knowledge, Theory ofPopular works. I. Title.