A Canticle for Leibowitz
In a post-nuclear future, monks preserve scraps of old knowledge as history cycles from ruin toward renewal and ruin again.
First published 1984 · St. Leibowitz
Science FictionPost Apocalyptic
More about this book
Story
Centuries after a nuclear catastrophe, a monastic order in the American Southwest preserves remnants of the old world: books, diagrams, and other scraps of human knowledge. Their work is partly devotional and partly practical, as they copy, safeguard, and try to interpret things they barely understand.
The narrative follows connected episodes across widely separated eras. In the first, a young monk discovers relics tied to the order’s founder, stirring questions of sanctity, memory, and the value of what survived the devastation. Later sections show a society slowly rebuilding, with scholars, rulers, and the monastery all contending over knowledge, authority, and the uses of science.
As the centuries advance, technology returns and civilization rises again, but so do ambition, militarism, and the conditions for another collapse. The story keeps returning to the same central question: whether humanity can learn from its past, or only repeat it under new names and higher stakes.
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More by Walter M. Miller Jr.
In the St. Leibowitz series
Shown by first publication year; this may not be reading order.
Details
- Authors
- Walter M. Miller Jr.
- First published
- 1984
- Genres
- Science Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Classics, Dystopia, Fantasy, Religion, Speculative Fiction
- Subjects
- Hugo Award Winner · award:hugo_award=1961 · award:hugo_award=novel · American Science fiction · apocalypse · nuclear war · civilization · science fiction · church versus state · Long Now Manual for Civilization · Monks · Fiction · Monasticism and religious orders · Mutation (Biology) · Nuclear warfare · Christianity · Monastic and religious life · Reading Level-Grade 7 · Reading Level-Grade 9 · Reading Level-Grade 8 · Reading Level-Grade 11 · Reading Level-Grade 10 · Reading Level-Grade 12 · Social aspects · Radioactive fallout survival · American fiction · Fiction, science fiction, general · Science fiction, history and criticism · New York Times reviewed · American literature · Fiction, general · Knowledge management · Freedom of information · Wandering Jew
- ISBN-13
- 9780060892999
[DEV NOTE: Eventually use our own synthesized data.]