10 Books To Save Humanity!!

What strikes me how often it seems to be pure chance that has determined what literature has survived the centuries and what what is gone forever. Tacitus's Histories and Annals, one of our major sources for the history of the Roman Empire and a brilliant piece of writing? All we have is based on one copy, with some of the good parts ripped out. Beowulf? One copy, found on some dusty monastary bookshelf. Out of all the works of the Greek tragedians, all we have are the very incomplete works of three of them. (For example, out of the 70 to 90 plays of Aeschylus, only seven remain.) And so on. Makes you wonder what great works didn't survive that we might well call cultural treasures today. So what the hell, maybe you should just run through a decent sized library and pull out ten books at random. Or, if you want to cheat a little bit, maybe just close your eyes and pull ten volumes of the Great Books of the Western World off the shelf.Regardless, I'll take the contrary view of some of the tech-minded folks here. If you lost Origin of Species, you'd still have the ToE, even if you had to wait for someone to rediscover it. Calculus is still calculus, even if no one could ever present it as masterfully as Newton did. But cultural works are irreplacable. If you toss out Chaucer, you'll never find anything quite like him again. Sure, your colonists would eventually come up with their own creative works, but with no heritage of previous works to build on, there would be a piece of humanity there that they could never replace.And now after that pedantic intro, here's what I'd try to grab at the last minute as I ran for the spaceship gangway - dreams and ideas that would still matter, even if the cultures from which they came were gone.In no real order:The Illiad
The Tao Te Ching
Beyond Good and Evil (Neitzsche)
Histories (Herodotus)
Collected Short Stories (Kafka)
The Federalist (Jay, Hamilton, Madison)
Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)
Don Quixote (Cervantes)
Tragedies (Shakespeare)
Moby Dick (Melville)And maybe out of all of those, Kafka matters the most, because while the others are imposing for most, anyone can read Kafka and be changed. Makes me want to do a second list of works that your average off-duty stardrive tech will be happy reading.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John LydonWhat's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a new puppy? The puppy eventually grows up and quits whining.
-Steven Dutch

I thought that the assumption was that the technical knowledge was all accounted for, and that the question was what 10 books could represent all of humanity's cultural achievments?I won't pretend to defend Chaucer or Shakespeare on the grounds of utility, nor do I think that the Illiad is worth saving just for its entertainment value (though it certainly has it). You read works by these dead white guys (or dead yellow guy, in the case of the Tao Te Ching) because as important as building biospheres or analysing alien DNA might be to our settlers, it's also important to read books that talk about what human life might mean. Worthwhile anytime, but maybe even more when there's almost nothing of humanity left.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John LydonWhat's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a new puppy? The puppy eventually grows up and quits whining.
-Steven Dutch

Well, if we're right about how evolution works, then any planet that already has life on it will have its own evolutionary history to discover. I kinda doubt that these settlers would want to attempt to terraform a completely lifeless barren rock, but even if that was where they ended up, the life they planted there would also start along its own evolutionary path.Either way, ToE, like Germ Theory, is simply true, just waiting for someone to figure it out.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John LydonWhat's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a new puppy? The puppy eventually grows up and quits whining.
-Steven Dutch

My take, which differs only slightly from Straggler's, I think, is that the starship is going to have as many textbooks and the like as anyone could want, so that your biology texts would have a perfectly good explanation of ToE, and the physics texts would likewise describe GR in full. The point of including a scientific work in this List of Ten would be if the work in itself, and not just the information it contained, is an intellectual achievement of significance. There's a profound difference between studying a geometry textbook and reading Euclid's Elements. You could read a very accurate plot description of Hamlet, but that would be nothing like reading or seeing the play itself.To my mind, as examples of what human beings have thought and aspired to, these 10 books should not only be reminders to our colonists of their intellectual heritage, but might also be something that they could point out to members of an alien civilization and say with as much pride as they can summon up, "Here's what we can do. This is what it's meant to be a human being."That said, I now want to revise my list a bit, trying to stick as closely as I can to the standard of intellectual and cultural achievement. I've also tried to focus on books that have been ground-breaking and transformational in some way or another, books that have changed the way we see ourselves and the universe.On those grounds, one could argue that the Bible has been the most influential book on Western culture of all. I admit to some prejudice in leaving it out; perhaps I don't want to burden the remnants of humanity with the poison of monotheism. But I'll also argue that the Bible itself hasn't necessarily been so influential so much as the belief systems that have grown up around it have left their deep imprint on our culture. It's Christianity, more than the book of Zephaniah itself, that has shaped wars and cathedrals. As worthwhile as some parts of the Bible are as literature or as philosophical thought, there's also a lot of stuff that no-one would miss. I would think it no great loss to say goodbye forever to all the Levitical laws or the tale of the genocide that the Hebrews committed in Canan. My bias might also be showing when I leave out something like The Divine Comedy, but feel compelled to include Nietzsche.I assert that while books like these aren't as immediately useful as the manual for the FTL drive or medical textbook, that doesn't make them any less necessary. Some of them might require a measure of effort and seriousness to read, though probably not as much as one might think, but nothing here is beyond the abilities of a reasonably intelligent person. (Newton might be the exception, since he apparently had no interest at all in diluting his thoughts with a lot of explanation just to make them accessible to anyone not determined to be brilliant.) I've read all of them at one point or another, and even a modestly endowed mind like mine has been opened up and elevated again and again by the experience.I'll accept the limitation that you have to be able to find a single volume edition of a book for it to count as just one title and not more. Since I'm limiting myself to books I've actually read, and not merely going by reputation, there are going to be some sad ommissions. So Faust might be a book of incomparable majesty, but I couldn't tell you. Okay, there are some plays of Shakespeare that I haven't attempted, and the Principia is forever out of my league. In terms of intellectual achievement, however, there was no way I could omit it. On the other hand, since I've never been able to conquer James Joyce either, he's lost forever, I'm afraid. I regret that I don't know enough Eastern literature to be able to represent it fairly.Homer The Illiad
Shakespeare Complete Plays and Sonnets
Newton Principia
Carroll Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass
Cervantes Don Quixote
Chaucer The Canterbury Tales
Hamilton, Madison and Jay The Federalist Papers
Neitzsche Beyond Good and Evil
The Tao Te Ching
Kafka The Complete Stories

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John LydonWhat's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a new puppy? The puppy eventually grows up and quits whining.
-Steven Dutch

Hi Straggler, I felt compelled to include the Principia because not only are Newton's insights well beyond what 99.999% of us even can ever hope to experience, but how he put it together and presented it is a thing of beauty in itself. You can learn classical mechanics and physics from any old decently written textbook, but to see Newton's mind at work is staggering. I can certainly see a strong argument along the sames lines for including Origin of Species, as it too is a great piece of writing and reasoning. I wasn't sure what to do about Einstein's Principles of Relativity either. Some have argued that while ToE and the calculus (and physics, and everything else in the Principia) were both huge achievements, they were insights that were in some sense inevitable. I'm sure that Wallace and Leibniz would agree with that. On the other hand, I've heard it said that had there been no Einstein, SR and GR might still be waiting to be discovered. Debatable, but still indicative of the magnitude of Einstein's achievements. So ultimately, I think that I stuck with Newton and booted Einstein and Darwin mostly on aesthetic grounds.It also pained me greatly to not include Euclid's Elements, but again, the ideas can still be transmitted in full even without the beauty of the original presentation. My favoring literary rather than scientific works has mostly to do with how irreplaceable and unique great works of literature are. Only Shakespeare could have written Shakespeare. Eh, I'm still resisting the anthology approach. I haven't read Russell, so I can't say whether his thinking is seminal in itself, or whether he's just giving a summary and analysis, however brilliantly. I suspect the latter, and so have to disagree with including a book about philosophy, rather than a book of philosophy. I feel honor-bound to reject Russell for much the same reason as I would the Norton Anthology of English Literature.Saying no to The Complete Works of Plato might be indefensible, considering how essential Plato is to everything that has come after. Personal preference, maybe, as was choosing Nietzsche above all the other thinkers. Maybe it would be better to let Plato and Nietzsche stand as bookends to philosophical thought, as the foundation of a temple and its ultimate destruction by lightning and fire.That was fucking pretentious, but what the fuck. Personal preference again. Alice certainly has that "Where the hell did that come from?" quality that I was after. Plus, I just can't stay interested once Dante gets to Paradise. Which is perfectly fine. I just don't think that anyone reads the Magna Carta for the beauty and brilliance of its prose. (Also, I haven't read it at all, so I'm in no position to judge.) I'm actually giving The Federalist Papers the boot for the same reason, however significant they might be to American democracy, although now I can't think of anything that would serve as a model of brilliant political thought. Maybe there's a reason why I can't think of any aesthetic masterpieces about government.So in light of the above pedantic blathering, I'm revising my list again.Homer The Iliad
Shakespeare Complete Plays and Sonnets
Newton Principia Mathematica
Carroll Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass
Cervantes Don Quixote
Einstein Principles of Relativity*
Plato Complete Works
Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil
The Tao Te Ching
Kafka The Complete Stories*The edition that also has papers by Lorentz and Minkowski, which is kinda cheating, but what the fuck. It's also kinda fudging my rules, because I've only read enough of this to know that I am way, way out of my league here. But why let my intellectual failings deny the human race one of its finest moments?I'm having fun with this, anyway.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John LydonWhat's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a new puppy? The puppy eventually grows up and quits whining.
-Steven Dutch

I've read a bunch out of the Principia - it was actually the text we used in college to learn calculus, as well as classical physics. (My memory is fuzzy about the latter, but I sure remember the former.) I haven't done the whole thing, though, and it's been a while. Like maybe 25 years or so. But the impression lasts.I am sure that Newton was a totally anti-social, ego-maniacal, thoroughly unpleasant person, so who knows what he was really up to. As far as him hiding his work, I believe - and I'm almost certain I'm wrong, just because I am so often - it might have been more a case that he just didn't want to waste the time explaining the calculus if he didn't have to. Or he was too busy with other things to bother letting anyone know what he'd come up with. He might also have been holding it back for fear that someone might steal it, or for some other sociopathic reason. But in the end, I do believe that it's all in there, none of the good parts left out. I do remember my junior year math instructor saying, "Newton doesn't even give you the minimum that you need to understand what he's doing here!" Like I said, my impression is that if you're not up to understanding him on your own, he's not going to bother holding your hand for you.What a guy. But great stuff. You'd love it.Edited by ZenMonkey, : No reason given.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John LydonWhat's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a new puppy? The puppy eventually grows up and quits whining.
-Steven Dutch

My take was intellectual and cultural achievements. I'm a liberal arts guy, as much as I'm anything at all, so I felt most competent sticking with literature that I'd actually read and that I felt were unique contributions.I agree with your earlier post that it's hard to know what to do with art and architecture, though they might be outside the scope of the OP. Pictures are pitifully inadequate for either, so they might just be a dead loss, or at least survive just as tours on the holodeck.Music might be outside the scope of the OP as well. Let's just say that someone has an iPod or the 22nd century version thereof, and so Mozart and the Sex Pistols can both live on.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John LydonWhat's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a new puppy? The puppy eventually grows up and quits whining.
-Steven Dutch

Actually, only two books on my list were originally written in English, and Shakespeare is on the edge of needing translation for most readers. Having only one title to represent non-Western thought is shameful, though.I am now wondering how Dr A would enjoy reading Newton directly.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John LydonWhat's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a new puppy? The puppy eventually grows up and quits whining.
-Steven Dutch

I think we're in agreement here. What we think of as Western civilization absolutely starts with the Greeks. One could even argue that it starts with 5th and 4th century BCE Athens. The great civilizations that came before this were in a sense more Eastern than Western, or at least built on very different cultural foundations. The cultural concepts that we tend to identify as Western - individuality, democratic rule, free thought, rationality - begin in Greece.What I was lamenting was that I knew so little about Eastern culture that I could really only come up with one title to represent it. Like most Americans, I suspect, I don't know nearly enough about The Mahabarata, The Analects of Confucius, or the I Ching, for example, to be able to testify to their greatness. But at least I managed to not limit myself only to English language texts.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John LydonWhat's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a new puppy? The puppy eventually grows up and quits whining.
-Steven Dutch

Well, the worth of these foundational texts depends on what you're most interested in. I fully agree that if you want to know something about a topic in science, you should read the most recent stuff you can, whether in technical literature or in books for the laity. I agree that it's absurd to think you could learn much about evolution by reading Darwin. (Though many creos tend to believe just that, assuming that Origin is some sort of sacred text on the same level as the Bible.) I went to a Great Books college, and believe me, in some ways it really sucked to learn about genetics by reading selections from Mendel, and we had to supplement all the science classes with plenty of handouts.On the other hand, learning geometry from Euclid is an awesome experience, and just might be the best way to do it. My take on the question assumed that our ship was going to be fully stocked with textbooks, so that the substance of human knowledge would be preserved. So what I was focusing on was works that were cultural monuments in themselves. Like I said, you can access as much information about any of the works I listed as you want, but it's the experience of reading the texts themselves that matters so far as I'm concerned here. I'm looking for the WOW factor, the visceral pleasure of seeing a creative mind at work, whether writing plays in a way that no-one had ever done before and transforming the English language in the process, or creating a startling new kind of physics, or opening up the doorway to understanding the history of life on this planet.So I'd still encourage you to pick up the Principia sometime, Dr A. In some ways I'm sure that you do know more calculus than Newton did. But you can still be mighty impressed by watching how he lays it out brand new.Edited by ZenMonkey, : Added rhetorical flourish.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John LydonWhat's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a new puppy? The puppy eventually grows up and quits whining.
-Steven Dutch

I went to St John's College in Santa Fe, NM and Annapolis, MD, which was an uncharacteristically intelligent thing for my 18 year-old self to decide to do. The curriculum at St John's is essentially four years of Great Books: the books themselves, from Homer to Freud, covering history, philosophy, government, literature, etc. There are no textbooks or lectures. Instead, we discussed the books in small classes or seminars. And small means really small. I think my graduating class was 47 people. Everyone takes the same courses all the way through. And there are no majors. There are no reported grades either, at least not when I went, though if you really want to you can go to the dean's office and ask to see them. If you add up the hours, it works out to a philosophy major with a math minor.It's not the usual way of doing things in a country where education is mostly about studying for a career, but it certainly does the job if you want to develop a strong foundation for understanding Western culture, and a broadly based education like that also gives you an edge for learning most anything else you want to.I thought it was wonderful, and it was. It was, however, mostly wasted on my non-studious self. If only I knew then, etc.Edited by ZenMonkey, : No reason given.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John LydonWhat's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a new puppy? The puppy eventually grows up and quits whining.
-Steven Dutch