Professor Lewis Dartnell believes that even after a collapse, civilisation can be rebuilt from scratch, detailed in his book: The Knowledge (Bodley Head, 2014). He is not concerned with the run-of-the-mill economic collapse, but things nastier, like all-out nuclear war, a killer asteroid hit, or a virus that really was deadly, rather than merely constructed to economically destroy the West. He thinks that the scenario of a fast die off of the majority of the population will create a grace period, where the handful of survivors can make use of the left-over resources to rebuild civilisation, and he details how. Basically, the survivors need to have an understanding of fundamental science, such as the atomic theory of matter and the germ theory of disease.
I found the discussion of kick-starting agriculture, food and clothing, medicine, materials, transport and advanced chemistry fascinating. It is all based on preserving the scientific method, that the world is material rather than spiritual, and is governed by empirically ascertainable causes. I think this is where the book fails to get off the ground.