A Canticle for Leibowitz

Written in 1959 during the cold war and the fear of nuclear war, this book has stood the test of time remarkably well.

Set over three time periods, it describes society a few hundred years after world-wide nuclear annihilation or the 'Flame Deluge" as it's remembered, when mankind is starting to recover. The backlash to nuclear war has been the 'Simplification' where all books are burnt and educated people killed to prevent to prevent any re-invention of the weapons that destroyed the world. A Jewish electronic engineer, Isaac Leibowitz who survived established a monastery in the Utah desert and charged the monks with collecting as much written material as they can and keeping it safe in a fortified monastery. In the second time period, some six centuries later man is emerging from the dark ages, science is being re-invented and the 'memorabilia' kept by the monks is rediscovered and inspected for the knowledge it contains. In the final time period another 600 years later, man has travelled to the stars and formed new colonies but has reinvented weapons and Earth is once again on the brink of destruction.

There is much humour in the story - in the many characters with all their human imperfections as well as in the worship of ancient writings (like Leibowitz's shopping list and circuit diagram), but there are also many serious issues for consideration just as pertinent to today as to the middle of last century. There is the ever topical battle between science and religion as well as the question of whether euthanasia should be allowed for people doomed to die. The biggest question of course, is whether as a civilization are we doomed to keep fighting and killing each other over religion, race or land with ever more powerful weapons or will be at some stage grow up and evolve beyond that?