Legendary artist and composer Brian Eno has shared a list of 59 book to build your intellectual world, and 20 books he believes would help rebuild civilisation, should it ever require rebuilding. Hell, they may come in handy pretty soon.

Included in the lists are classics from authors such as Tolstoy, Da Vinci, and Karl Popper… plus a whole lot of stuff you’ve definitely never heard of.

Think our society is crumbling? Here’s a huge list of books that Brian Eno believes are capable of rebuilding civilisation.

The lists were created in collaboration with The Long Now Foundation, an American, non-profit organisation that aims to counter today’s “faster/cheaper” mindset and promote “slower/better” thinking.

Eno currently sits on the board of The Long Now Foundation, and accordingly has a hand in a number of the organisation’s projects.

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So if you’re in the mood to build yourself intellectually, or rebuild our decaying civilisation, suss out the two huge lists below:

Brian Eno’s list of books for rebuilding civilisation:

Seeing Like a State by James C Scott

The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art by David Lewis-Williams

Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti

The Wheels of Commerce by Fernand Braudel

Keeping Together in Time by William McNeill

Dancing in the Streets by Barbara Ehrenreich

Roll Jordan Roll by Eugene Genovese

A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander et al

The Face of Battle by John Keegan

A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor

Contingency, Irony and Solidarity by Richard Rorty

The Notebooks by Leonardo da Vinci

The Confidence Trap by David Runciman

The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstein

Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection by Sarah Hrdy

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Cambridge World History of Food (2-Volume Set) by Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas

The Illustrated Flora of Britain and Northern Europe by Marjorie Blamey & Christopher Grey Wilson

Printing and the Mind of Man by John Carter & Percy Muir

Peter the Great: His Life and World by Richard Massie

Brian Eno’s list for building your intellectual world:

Best Ideas: A Compendium of Social Innovation edited by Nicholas Albery

A Foreshadowing of the 21st Century Art: The Color and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets by Christopher Alexander

Bridge Over the Drina by Ivo Andric

Jihad vs. McWorld by Benjamin Barber

The Artful Universe by John Barrow

Brain of the Firm by Stafford Beer

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

The Creators by Daniel Boorstin

Lay My Burden Down: A Folk History of Slavery edited by B.A. Botkin

How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand

Civilization and Capitalism by Fernand Braudel

The Transformation of War by Martin van Creveld

The Transfiguration of the Commonplace by Arthur Danto

River Out of Eden by Richard Dawkins

Darwin’s Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett

Defence Policy Making edited by G.M. Dillon

Women En Large: Image of Fat Nudes by Laurie Toby Edison and Debbie Notkin

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

Trust by Francis Fukuyama

Edge City by Joel Garreau

Ecce Homo by George Grosz

Beyond Culture by Edward T. Hall

Managing the Commons by Garrett Hardin and John Baden

The Middle Ages by Friedrich Herr

Going Bugs by James Hillman

Culture of Complaint by Robert Hughes

by Robert Hughes The Waning of the Middle Ages by Johann Huizinga

The State We’re In by Will Hutton

Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization by Kevin Kelly

Wild Blue Yonder by Nick Krotz

Fetish Girls by Eric Kroll

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Artificial Life by Steven Levy

Planetary Overload by A.J. McMichael

Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte

Erotica Universalis by Gilles Neret

Living Without a Goal by Jay Ogilvy

Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje

Evolution of Consciousness by Robert E. Ornstein

Art and Pornography and Man’s Rage for Chaos by Morse Peckham

Works and Texts by Tom Phillips

by Tom Phillips The Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker

In Search of a Better World by Karl Popper

Prisoner’s Dilemma by William Poundstone

Postcards by Annie Proulx

Consequences of Pragmatism and Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty

The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie

England’s Dreaming by Jon Savage

Lords of the Rim by Sterling Seagrave

Art and Physics by Leonard Shlain

I am That: Conversations with Sri Nisaragadatta Maharaj

Face of the Gods and Flash of the Spirit by Robert Farris Thompson

Ocean of Sound by David Toop

The Seven Cultures of Capitalism by Charles Hampden Turner

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West

Art and Anarchy by Edgar Wind

Via Open Culture