It's probably more useful to look both at how our modern technological society did evolve, and at groups which are seriously considering existential risk, complexity, and potential paths to a reboot.

Among the latter is the Long Now Foundation, which has proposed a Manual for Civilization (02010):

<https://longnow.org/ideas/manual-for-civilization/>

I've my own disagreements with LNF, but the concept is worth consideration and the effort to compile useful knowlege worth studying for both points of agreement and difference.

The question of how, why, where, and when the Industrial Revolution (writ broadly, ~1700 to present) emerged has filled books. The so-called Needham Question asks why it was the British Isles and not China which saw the IR take off. Needham's exploration of this topic, begun in 1954, has produced 27 books to date and remains underway. Wikipedia's article gives a good overview, as well as the general organisation of the work and its contents to date:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_Ch...>

I've been partial to histories of the world through the lens of history, most notably Vaclav Smil's Energy and Civilization: A History (2017) and Energy in World History (1994), and Manfred Weissenbacher's Sources of Power (2009).

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaclav_Smil#Books>

<https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/sources-of-power-9780313356278...>

Smil has also looked at many other elements of technological history, material usage, and energy transitions, see the publications section of his Wikipedia bio above.

What's notable is that most of the material and energy ingredients of the modern world have been known since antiquity, but were not, or could not be, usefully employed, for various reasons. There's endless speculation as to why, with theological, technical, scientific, social, political, geographical, and other justifications given. I suspect it's many of these inter-operating, and that the bootstrapping process is a sensitive and delicate one.

Many of these elements are covered in the series the Princeton Economic History of the Western World:

<https://press.princeton.edu/series/the-princeton-economic-hi...>

There are of course other books which touch on this topic (and I'd strongly recommend Polanyi's The Great Transformation), but if you want one-stop shopping over many dimensions of the question, this is an excellent place to start.

My own thinking leads me to believe that there are nine fundamental dynamics to technological mechanisms:

- Fuels

- Materials

- Power transmission and transformation (simple machines, electromagnetic, etc.)

- Process knowledge (technical)

- Causal knowledge (scientific)

- Networks (nodes and links, physical or logical, experience "network effects" and network contagion)

- Systems (feedback)

- Information (input, parsing, storage/retrieval, logic, transmission)

- Hygiene (addressing unintended / unanticipated consequences)

In particular, the availability or discovery of new fuels and materials has typically resulted in widespread societal changes and progress, though also in other areas (e.g., information technologies, from speech to writing to maths to printing to digital IT). At the same time, each mechanism has limitations and consequences which also affect capabilities and impose limits.

By way of outlining a specific answer: the shape of a solution or reboot will depend tremendously on what materials and fuels are available, how they're accessed (our own waste dumps are likely to be major sources moving forward), and the consequences of past and present industrialisation on that landscape. Fundamental requirements of food, housing, and basic production capital will establish general capabilities. Transportation, over land and sea, possibly air, will determine requirements for self-sufficiency or possibilities of trade. Our ability to address basic production and distribution (whether through market or other means) general living conditions within and between specific societies and polities.

I'd additionally strongly recommend the work of William Ophuls and Thomas Homer-Dixon.