Cover image for A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Title:
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Summary:
A Canticle for Leibowitz opens 600 years after 20th century civilization has been destroyed by a global nuclear war, known as the "Flame Deluge." As a result of the war, there was a violent backlash against the culture of advanced knowledge and technology that had led to the development of nuclear weapons. During this backlash, called the "Simplification," anyone of learning, and eventually anyone who could even read, was likely to be killed by rampaging mobs, who proudly took on the name of "Simpletons". Illiteracy became almost universal, and books were destroyed en masse. Isaac Edward Leibowitz had been a Jewish electrical engineer working for the United States military. Surviving the war, he converted to Roman Catholicism and founded a monastic order, the "Albertian Order of Leibowitz", dedicated to preserving knowledge by hiding books, smuggling them to safety (booklegging), memorizing, and copying them. Centuries after his death, the abbey is still preserving the "Memorabilia", the collected writings that have survived the Flame Deluge and the Simplification, in the hope that they will help future generations reclaim forgotten science.
General Note:
"This book was originally published in 1959 by Lippincott and in trade paperback editions in 1961 and 1997 by Bantam, and in 1986 by Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers"--Title page verso.
Edition:
First Eos paperback edition.
Contents:
pt. 1. Fiat homo -- pt. 2. Fiat lux -- pt. 3. Fia voluntas tua.
Physical Description:
xiii, 334 pages ; 21 cm
Publisher:
Eos,
Publication Date:
2006

1959
ISBN:
9780060892999
Publication Information:
New York : Eos, 2006.

©1959
Call Number:
MILLER
Holds: Copies: