Don Akers is a freelance writer with an interest in literature. In the following essay, he compares Shute's fictional war scenario in On the Beach with historical events in the past several decades.

While the literary merits of Nevil Shute's On the Beach may be debated, there is no doubt that he struck a nerve with the readers of popular fiction in 1957.

World War n concluded with the nuclear obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, the end of the most destructive war of the twentieth century signaled the beginning of a new conflict: the Cold War. After defeating Germany and Japan, the Soviet Union separated from its western allies. Winston Churchill coined the term "iron curtain" in a 1946 speech describing this separation. Tensions escalated between these former allies when the Soviets detonated their own nuclear bomb in 1949

During the next decade, a variety of events intensified worry...