Books to Make Civilization Better
You might think I'm cheating on this, but after my previous posting on "books I'd save in the event civilization was collapsing," I realized that my list of books to make the future better isn't much different. However, instead of focusing on low-tech books concentrating on morality or how people might think, I would add a few books that assume civilization will remain high-tech and that we can progress even farther than we are now. So without further ado, here's my list:
Non-Fiction and Reference
- The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, Robert Zubrin
- Cities in Space, edited by Jerry Pournelle
- Far Frontiers, edited by Jerry Pournelle
- The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil (with a few reservations, of course)
- Engines of Creation, Eric Drexler
- The High Frontier, Gerard K. O'Neill
- N-Space, by Larry Niven
- Playgrounds of the Mind, by Larry Niven
- The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray
- Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl
- Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis
- Mining the Sky, John S. Lewis
- Moonrush, Dennis Wingo
- The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes
- Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship, George Dyson
Fiction
- Ringworld, Larry Niven
- Green Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
- Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
- The Fountains of Paradise, Arthur C. Clarke
- A Case of Conscience, James Blish
- The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
- More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
- The World at the End of Time, Frederik Pohl
- Mining the Oort, Frederik Pohl
- Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
- Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
Your additions/thoughts are welcome. I'd be particularly interested in seeing not just what others would choose, but why.
