Neal Stephenson’s Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization
Best-selling author Neal Stephenson has added a couple dozen books to the Manual for Civilization, the library of 3,500 volumes we’re assembling that could help sustain or rebuild civilization. The Manual resides at The Interval, our headquarters in San Francisco, a public space with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Long Now’s Board, members, and invited experts are all making selections for the manual. Our guest experts include archivists, artists, authors, educators, scientists and more, as we follow a long tradition of gathering essential knowledge that can be used by future generations.
Neal Stephenson is an author of speculative fiction whose ground-breaking novels include Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and Anathem, a book based in a world of 10,000 year clocks inspired by our own Clock of the Long Now. In fact Neal was a charter Long Now member, a donor to The Interval, and gave input early on to Danny Hillis about the 10,000 Year Clock design.
For 30 years, Neal Stephenson’s writing has been distinguished by weaving minutely detailed historical and technical information into his complex stories, usually with a wicked sense of humor. Whether it’s fashion in Victorian England or World War II era cryptography, his dedication to detailed research is readily apparent. The Baroque Cycle novels perhaps most exemplify this, as they focus on key people and events in the development of science across many cultures in the 17th and 18th centuries. We knew Neal’s recommendations would be invaluable for this project.
Many of the research sources for Neal’s novels can be found in his home library. And it was an honor and privilege that Neal walked me through his library and thoughtfully selected the list of books below for the Manual for Civilization. You can see from his selections that he believes understanding history is essential to creating the best possible future.
Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil by Thomas Hobbes
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volumes 1–6 by Edward Gibbon
The Odyssey by Homer translated by Robert Fagles
The Iliad by Homer translated by Robert Fagles
The: Civilization & Capitalism 15th-18th Century, Volumes 1–3 by Fernand Braudel
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
Newton’s Principia for the Common Reader by S. Chandrasekhar
The American Practical Navigator: An Epitome of Navigation by Nathaniel Bowditch
Pax Britannica: A Three Volume Set (Heaven’s Command, Pax Britannica, and Farewell the Trumpets) by James Morris
Son Of The Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn by Evan S. Connell
The Siege at Peking by Peter Fleming
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb by Richard Rhodes
Marlborough, His Life & Times, Volumes 1–6 by Winston Churchill
The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe by Roger Penrose
Many thanks to Neal for taking the time and care to recommend these books for our collection. His list adds to suggestions from Kevin Kelly, Brian Eno, Maria Popova, Stewart Brand, Violet Blue, Kevin Kelly, other invited experts, as well as Long Now Foundation members.
You can visit The Manual yourself at The Interval, Long Now’s bar/cafe in San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center. It’s full of Long Now artifacts and prototypes, art by Brian Eno, plus delicious coffee, tea, cocktails and it’s home to our salon series of events about long-term thinking and related topics.
This list is an excerpt of the 3,500 book crowd-curated Manual For Civilization library which we are compiling to back up the essential knowledge of civilization. More than 800 titles are already available online at The Internet Archive.
Originally published at blog.longnow.org on April 17, 02014.
