OmniBlog

The Bible - Here is something on which a basic morality and spirituality can be established. Without this, all else is for naught.

The Libertarian Reader - David Boaz, (an assortment of philosophy, from Locke to Jefferson to Mill - it covers the basic principles needed to form a government).

The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution - They usually come together, more principles on which to build a society.

Democracy in America - Tocqueville (offers knowledge of how a productive society and a virtuous one can prosper).

Why Be Good? - Richter (a collection of philosophy from the likes of Kant and Humes, also necessary to develop morality).

I like this guy.

Hrm difficult question most of the books I treasure and would want to pass on require a degree of training or a certain exposure to canonical western texts to really read and understand. Most science would be relatively unhelpful stripped of the theoretical body that surrounds it- the same can be said for mathematics. By leaving such small fragments to the future we would basically just end up producing a new system of magic (people would bless their bread and wine by chanting the maxwell equations or something like that as they have no understanding of them except that they were at onetime powerful ideas) . So I think the most important message you could pass onto a bunch of uneducated kids is that the world was much different at sometime in the past (and leave behind the essentials for rebuilding the basics of our more abstract knowledge).

An unabridged english dictionary.

Will Durante’s Story of Civilization (its a multibook set but some people said ‘wikipedia’ so I’ll just supply this as a comprehensive survey of western history to the 19th century): I'd like to see what civilization looks like without record of the last 100 years.

A general anthology of Antiquity (Plato, Homer, Virgil, Sophocles ect): I think the cooperative/competitive ethos of antiquity would produce a more dynamic and interesting society than one based upon the mythos of the bible.

A primer for essential areas of mathematics (arithmetic/algebra/geometry/calculus/first order logic): I'll throw them a bone, it took us thousands of years to come up with the idea of zero so I figure giving them the essentials for computational math and also extension via proof is important.

Textbook on Lambda Calculus (Lambda calculus provides a useful formal notation for describing computation). I don't know what the kids could use this for, but someone in their future could make use of this.

I'm pretending the weapon is inbound RIGHT NOW and I have to pick the books really quickly. Otherwise this would take a while...

Once I got my five I kind of arranged them as a curriculum, intending that reading each book set you up for the next one. Torn about LoTR and Jane Austen, but the damned weapon is coming, so...

Complete works of HG Wells

LoTR

Complete works of Jane Austen

Complete works of Shakespeare

Satan: His Psychotherapy and Cure (by Jeremy Leven)

5 copies of playboy, at least they'll die happy.

Five books wouldn't survive the following return to a primitive way of life: they'd be irrelevant IMHO.

True for the first generation. However, assuming they are made out of material that lasts throughout many generations, the day will come when the civilization of New Earth will question their own origins and the past. In which case, I'd explain my own choices:

- First Thousand Words in English (or any book teaching ABCs and reading)

- Any dictionary

> these first 2 holds the key to the language in which the other books are written as the new civilization will likely develop their own language.

- A book titled "Wikipedia" which will soon be published by Bowwow

> Wikipedia has articles on almost every subject. 'nuff said

- Oryx and Crake

> I chose this book because the story is similar to the scenario in OP, and might help the New Earth civilization understand how they came to be

- Guns, Germs and Steel

> A nice book on the development of several civilizations around the world, and how different acts affect their local environment and hence their own survival - a good "lesson book" for a civilization that has rerolled on how they might act differently to those that have passed before them and avoid making the same mistakes

I like how you used the term "rerolled" XD

Law Among Nations (Taulbee)

Diplomacy (By Henry Kissinger)

Fodors Europe (2004 edition)

The US Army (Army Historical Society Version)

The Complete Lord of the Rings (Tolkein)

The Way Things Work: So they can actually you know, build civilization

The Oxford English Dictionary: Pretty self evident

my old Mathematics textbook: Pretty self evident

my old Chemistry textbook: Pretty self evident

my old Physics textbook: Pretty self evident

They can come up with their own morality and values, ours certainly didn't do us much good.