A few days ago, when I mentioned telegraphy without electricity and the time-travel novel Lest Darkness Fall, I didn’t realize that Tyler Cowen had just launched a discussion on how to survive in A.D. 1000 as a modern American. When I read the comments though, I wasn’t particularly impressed; most people clearly hadn’t given the idea much thought before.
He followed up with another post asking, How far back could you go and still be useful?, and a commenter named Scott made a recommendation right up my alley — he pointed to a book — and website — called Caveman Chemistry. I have been interested in bootstrapping society for a long, long time, and I’ve never been able to find a decent book on practical chemistry from scratch. This could be the one.