A Canticle for Leibowitz was the only novel Walter Miller published during his lifetime. But he only needed one to make a mark. The novel has never been out of print and it won the 1961 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. Canticle begins hundreds of years after modern civilization has been destroyed by nuclear war. Those who remain — who call themselves “Simpletons” — lash out against the technology that led to the creation of such deadly weaponry. In their effort to purge the society of all knowledge, they have burned books and killed doctors, scientists — virtually all literate people — and created a Dark Age. Monks in the Albertian Order of Leibowitz are trusted to preserve man’s scientific knowledge until the world is ready for it again. The book’s three parts, Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light) and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Let Thy Will Be Done), chronicle the society across 1,800 years as they journey from the era of Simplification to Renaissance to yet another age of nuclear weapons — proving prove that those who neglect history are doomed to repeat it.