A nuclear holocaust wipes out most of the world population, and the survivors reject all that led to the holocaust, things like education, literacy, science, and books. They hold massive book-burning sessions, and lynch all educated people they find. Leibowitz is a engineer, who hid from the lynch mobs in a monastery, in mid-western USA. Later, he becomes a man of the cloth himself, and starts his own order, to save books and knowledge for a future generation.
The story is split into three parts. The first set 600 years after the holocaust, a wild and chaotic world full of bandits and mutants, as people severe birth defects is now the norm. A young monk of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz chances upon a fallout shelter, pointed out to him by a mysterious Wanderer. There, the monk finds an original blueprint made by the founder of his order, the Blessed Leibowitz himself.
The next is set 600 years later, when a new renaissance is beginning. Several local city-states have arisen, and their rulers battle for supremacy much like in ancient Greece or medieval times. The church has now started studying and understanding the texts from over a millenium ago, and one of their more talented monks makes a treadmill-powered light bulb. The Wanderer is still around, he is now a reclusive hermit calling himself Benjamin. He monitors the goings-on, and meets with a nobleman who has “rediscovered” some basic scientific principles.
600 more years pass, and mankind has evolved into a new technological age, with nuclear weapons, and starships and colonies in space. The Leibowitzian order now preserves not just ancient memorabilia, but all knowledge. But humanity is doomed to repeat its mistakes, and never learn from their past ones. A new cold war is underway, between the Atlantic confederacy and the Asian coalition.
A series of misunderstandings lead to another nuclear strike and retaliatory strikes. The Leibowitzian order loads a starship full of the memorabilia collected over a thousand years, and takes off shortly before the strikes again wipe out humanity. The last monk boards the ship with the words Sic Transit Mundus.
This book is beautiful in so many ways. There are the vivid descriptions of the desert landscape, the finely drawn portraits of the monks, abbots, and priests, and there is a deep eloquence and humor infused in the narrative. The book is evenly paced, and the structure is elegant. The vivid visuals of a deeply hurt world make for wonderful reading.