A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller, Jr, 334 pages

St Isaac Leibowitz was one of the scientists who made Armageddon possible, and hoped that it would never become actual.  When human folly unleashed unimaginable destruction, he took shelter from the aftermath in a secluded monastery, emerging to found a religious order dedicated to preserving whatever could be preserved.  Down through the centuries, the spiritual sons of Leibowitz dare to defy both bloodthirsty simpletons and amoral sophisticates, barbarians who believe that by erasing history they can prevent it from recurring and barbarians who believe that their command of science makes history irrelevant.

A Canticle for Leibowitz is an adaptation and expansion of a series of short stories following the history of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz in the millennia following a devastating nuclear war.  One of the classics of science fiction, the heavy use of irony conceals one of the most compassionate and genuinely humane novels of the twentieth century.