A Gedanken Canon

Originally posted at Pharyngula. Salvaged from the comment threads, edited and re-posted due to popular acclaim. Let’s try a thought experiment. Suppose that in the near future, our global civilization collapses: maybe we try to cancel out global warming with nuclear winter. Centuries later, cities are being built again, and archaeologists come across books. One series in particular must have been exceedingly important, as copies are found in different languages â€" French, German, English, Lati