The Long Now Foundation was created to engage in very long-term thinking. One of its projects is a 10,000-year clock, which will tick one a year, bong once a century and strike the “hour” once every 1,000 years.
Another is to collect and store a library of essential reading, including a Manual of Civilization wing consisting of 3,500 books with information most needed to “sustain or restore” civilization. The books are still in the process of being selected.
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Here is a preliminary list of some of them.
10 Titles from Brian Eno’s Manual for Civilization list
Seeing Like a State by James C Scott
The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art by David Lewis-Williams
Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti
The Wheels of Commerce by Fernand Braudel
Keeping Together in Time by William McNeill
Dancing in the Streets by Barbara Ehrenreich
Roll Jordan Roll by Eugene Genovese
A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander et al
The Face of Battle by John Keegan
A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor
10 Titles from Stewart Brand’s Manual for Civilization list
Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The Odyssey by Homer translated by Robert Fagles
The Iliad by Homer translated by Robert Fagles
The Memory of the World: The Treasures That Record Our History from 1700 BC to the Present Day by UNESCO
The History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor
The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories edited by Robert B. Strassler
The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War edited by Robert B. Strassler
The Complete Greek Tragedies, Volumes 1-4 edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore
The Prince by Machiavelli, translated by George Bull, published by Folio Society
10 Titles from Kevin Kelly’s Manual for Civilization list
Practical Bamboos: The 50 Best Plants for Screens, Containers and More by Paul Whittaker
Caveman Chemistry: 28 Projects, from the Creation of Fire to the Production of Plastics by Kevin M. Dunn
The Soundscape by R. Murray Schafer
The Backyard Blacksmith by Lorelai Sims
A Museum of Early American Tools by Eric Sloane
Civilizations: Ten Thousand Years of Ancient History by Jane McIntosh and Clint Twist
Storey’s Guide to Raising Rabbits by Bob Bennet
Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources by M. Kat Anderson
Mirror Worlds: Or: The Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox… How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean by David Gelernter
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I like book lists. For more and longer lists, click on What Books Could Be Used to Rebuild Civilization? Three science fiction writers, David Brin, Bruce Sterling and Daniel Suarez, contributed their lists.
Tags: 10-000 Year Clock, Brian Eno, Clock of the Long Now, Kevin Kelly, Long Now Foundation, Manual of Civilization, Stewart Brand
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