THE BOOK
DEFINITIVE MANUAL FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF CIVILIZATION
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The Book, Pag 1, The city.
If we were to witness an epochal crisis of civilization, how could we rebuild it from scratch?
If we were to witness an epochal crisis of civilization, how could we rebuild it from scratch?
The Book originates from this question. Definitive Handbook for Rebuilding Civilization: An illustrated encyclopedia of mechanisms, processes, and materials that chronicles everything that has played a significant role in the history of humanity. From ancient remedies with medicinal herbs to the creation of the wheel, from the secret of keys and locks to tattoos, up to modern inventions such as submarines and the principles of psychotherapy.
A book that combines wonder, knowledge and practicality, allowing you to imagine possible worlds and providing the tools to build them.
Structure
Structure
The Book draws inspiration from the most enigmatic and fascinating texts in history. Its visual symbolism recalls the arcane Voynich Manuscript of the 15th century, while its unique and futuristic ideas echo the intellectual audacity of Stanisław Lem's Summa Technologiae.
Voynich Manuscript is one of the most mysterious and fascinating books ever discovered, shrouded in an enigma that has captured the imagination of scholars, cryptographers, and the curious for centuries. An illustrated text written in an unknown language or code, probably dating to the 15th century. It owes its name to Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish antiques dealer who purchased it in 1912 from a Jesuit villa in Italy. Today, it is preserved at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. The text is written in an unknown alphabet, nicknamed Voynichese. It has not been deciphered, and it is not known whether it represents a real language, a cipher, or even an elaborate hoax. Contains hundreds of illustrations, appearing to depict plants, astronomical diagrams, chemical/medical formulas.
Summa Technologiae is a philosophical and scientific essay written by Stanisław Lem, one of the most important science fiction authors of the 20th century. Published in 1964, this visionary work explores the limits of technology and its ethical, social and philosophical implications, anticipating themes that would become central in contemporary society, such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality and genetic engineering.
Each chapter of The Book is a portal to knowledge that combines the wonderful with the practical. You can get lost in the images, full of hidden meanings and cultural connections, or get your hands dirty and learn useful and surprising techniques:
How to cast a limb with precision.
Make a dental filling.
Rediscovering ancient crafts and arts.
A reading that is not only a journey through beauty and mystery, but also a practical manual for anyone who wants to rediscover and master the basics of survival and human ingenuity.
A MUCH WIDER MESSAGE
Survival manuals may be more than just books, but warning messages to humanity. Their massive appearance in the 1980s, a period of strong geopolitical tension and collective fears such as the Cold War and the environmental crisis, does not seem to be a coincidence. Since then, these texts continue to populate the shelves as if they wanted to prepare us for a future event in which our lifestyle could be radically called into question.
They invite us to imagine a world in which everything we take for granted (energy, water, food, stability) may no longer be guaranteed. Through these pages, we perceive a warning that, if ignored, could lead us to the end of what we know.
We depend on an extremely fragile balance
Lessons from the Past: Civilization is Cyclical
Lessons from the Past: Civilization is Cyclical
The message that emerges from many of these texts is in line with the historical view that civilizations are cyclical. Several works demonstrate how many societies of the past, from the Maya to Easter Island, collapsed due to poor management of resources, climate change and conflicts. Our current system of civilization is not immune to the same errors.
Present Lessons: An Invitation to Resilience
Present Lessons: An Invitation to Resilience
An implicit invitation to a cultural change: the return to resilience. These manuals teach survival techniques in the wilderness, but celebrate a more direct and sustainable relationship with the environment, offering an alternative to our hyper-technological lifestyle dependent on finite resources. The rise in popularity of survival manuals goes hand in hand with the awakening of global movements calling for greater attention to sustainability, reduced consumption and emergency preparedness.
Future Lessons: A Question of Collective Survival
Future Lessons: A Question of Collective Survival
Rediscover fundamental skills. Their diffusion perhaps represents an attempt to prepare ourselves to face a different future, in which progress will no longer be linear but guided by a greater awareness of our fragilities.
John Martin, Le Pandemonium, 1841, painted dimensions h 123cm, l 185cm, Louvre
AND YOU, are you willing to change our civilization?
AND YOU, are you willing to change our civilization?
Do you feel that the time has come for humanity to take a step forward, to evolve? Every problem seems to ask for a deeper and more radical response, something that goes beyond simple adaptation.
It's time to rediscover authentic values and build a new vision of the future together.
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