Alas, Babylon & A Canticle for Leibowitz: Can Civilization Survive Nuclear War?

Podcast: Cold War Cast · Cold War Cast

Opublikowano: 2026-08-19

Today we’re looking at two books that ask the question of what really happens to civilization in the aftermath of nuclear war. Alas, Babylon deals with the immediate aftermath of a nuclear war up until the first year after in a small Florida town. Canticles of Liebowitz looks out over a thousand years later and the struggle to preserve scraps of knowledge from before the bomb. If civilization is cumulative and relies on building on the past, what happens when those systems of support and institutions of knowledge begin to collapse? Everyone knew nuclear war wouldn’t be pret...