[nyan_sandwich]

On the cause and mitigation of collapses, my humble opinion is that a culture of technical ambition and inquiry is likely to be as important as specific knowledge.

You might want to look at what kinds of people (culturally and ethnically) are behind most innovation and engineering, and look at the differences and influences there. (It may be interesting to look at the historical trend of their power, as well, for futurological purposes.) If the culture that produces civilization stays around through a collapse, there probably is less to worry about than if that culture doesn't survive.

Thus among your important books may be some of the books of industrial culture, like Atlas Shrugged, most good science fiction, some enlightenment philosophy and poetry, Paul Graham's writing, etc.