Ever since its publication, On the Beach has been one of the most discussed books in America, as well as in other countries. At first its appeal was primarily topical: Americans were practicing air-raid drills in case of nuclear attack; their schoolchildren were learning to duck under their desks should a nuclear bomb be dropped nearby; and building bomb shelters was a booming business, becoming urgent as the Soviet Union swept Eastern European countries into its empire and China invaded Tibet and after that, India. By the late 1950s, the book had become a fundamental cultural reference — something someone could merely refer to by title and reasonably expect his listener to know exactly what he meant. It also came to be regarded as a kind of prophesy — a prediction of what might happen even to the best of people if the world's nuclear powers...