As many people have noted, you need "the tools to make the tools", and the "book" you really need is "The Way things Work" and a lot of additional technical manuals.

However, what might really be needed is not a technical library at all, but a book on economics. In the First century AD, Hero of Alexandria wrote a book on mechanisms which describe what we would term simple atmospheric engines, low pressure steam engines and so on. The Romans also knew about water wheels, crank mechanisms, devices that we would describe as clockwork and so on. Even farther in the past, the Greeks had the ability to create a mechanical astronomical calculator (The Antikythera mechanism).

The Ancient Chinese were apparently aware of many of these things as well (I will leave any details to more well versed writers to answer).

Going farther forward, we have fairly advanced (for the time) societies like the Hanse, building ocean going ships and trading across Europe from their ports in the Baltic, and the Serenìsima Repùblica Vèneta, another advanced society which pioneered "assembly line" production in the Arsenal, and concepts like "double entry" book keeping for their trade and banking networks. The first modern steam engine was patented in Spain in 1606.

Despite all these advances, there was no "Roman Industrial Revolution", and we essentially had to wait for England in the early 1700's to "kick off" what we know as the Industrial revolution.

England had a different social, cultural and economic system than any of the other societies which had developed parts of the Industrial Revolution as far back as 100 BC (the date assigned to the Antikythera mechanism). Ancient and early modern societies did not have the sorts of social or economic incentives that market capitalism does, and until the "Glorious Revolution" in England in 1688, social and political institutions did not explicitly place power in the hands of merchants, artisans and the middle class. This widely distributed and diffused social and economic system seems to be the major difference between England and all the societies that came before, allowing ideas to rapidly spread and providing the incentives to adopt and experiment with ideas.

So ultimately it does not seem that a lack of knowledge or technology was the deciding factor, but rather the social and economic conditions that allow incentives for ideas to spread

As many people have noted, you need "the tools to make the tools", and the "book" you really need is "The Way things Work" and a lot of additional technical manuals.

However, what might really be needed is not a technical library at all, but a book on economics. In the First century AD, Hero of Alexandria wrote a book on mechanisms which describe what we would term simple atmospheric engines, low pressure steam engines and so on. The Romans also knew about water wheels, crank mechanisms and devices that we would describe as clockwork. Even farther in the past, the Greeks had the ability to create a mechanical astronomical calculator (The Antikythera mechanism).

The Ancient Chinese were apparently aware of many of these things as well (I will leave any details to more well versed writers to answer).

Going farther forward, we have fairly advanced (for the time) societies like the Hanse, building ocean going ships and trading across Europe from their ports in the Baltic, and the Serenìsima Repùblica Vèneta, another advanced society which pioneered "assembly line" production in the Arsenal, and concepts like "double entry" book keeping for their trade and banking networks. The first modern steam engine was patented in Spain in 1606.

Despite all these advances, there was no "Roman Industrial Revolution", and we essentially had to wait for England in the early 1700's to "kick off" what we know as the Industrial revolution.

England had a different social, cultural and economic system than any of the other societies which had developed parts of the Industrial Revolution as far back as 100 BC (the date assigned to the Antikythera mechanism). Ancient and early modern societies did not have the sorts of social or economic incentives that market capitalism does, and until the "Glorious Revolution" in England in 1688, social and political institutions did not explicitly place power in the hands of merchants, artisans and the middle class. This widely distributed and diffused social and economic system seems to be the major difference between England and all the societies that came before, allowing ideas to rapidly spread and providing the incentives to adopt and experiment with ideas.

So ultimately it does not seem that a lack of knowledge or technology was the deciding factor, but rather the social and economic conditions that allow incentives for ideas to spread