I’m hard-put to classify this book. On the one hand it’s an engaging and valiant attempt to illustrate the crafts that would need to be retained (or rediscovered) after a civilisational collapse – or at least after one kind of collapse such as a pandemic that leaves the infrastructure intact by decaying rather than pulverised. Dartnell seems to think a more fierce collapse would be unsurvivable, and so focuses on the more positive possibility.

He traverses a lot of technologies, including for agriculture, building, transportation, clothing, chemistry, and communications. He (correctly in my view) identifies the scientific method itself as the most valuable technology to retain, and explores some of the ways in which modern society is contingent on specific historical accidents that a re-booting society need not copy.

But it’s also frustrating. As a scientist and engineer I wanted more detail: perhaps there’s a need for another, “how to” manual alongside this book. And Dartnell seems to have a very cavalier attitude towards safety, mentioning and understating the dangers of (for example) lye once and then making use of it extensively, which is a recipe for disaster on the part of any practitioners. And the book is a little too broad, rather than focusing on the technologies of immediate relevance in the aftermath of disaster: should we really be thinking about building vacuum-tube electronics when even basic agriculture is such a challenge?

Despite the positivity on display, reading this confirmed my thinking that a recovery after a disaster would be protracted, with no way to avoid a return to feudalism and warring bands. In that sense technology would be the least of the survivors’ worries.

3/5. Finished Saturday 22 November, 2025.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)