On the Beach, by Nevil Shute, was written just before the height of the cold war between United States and Russia in 1957. This book centers on an officer in the Australian Navy, Peter Holmes, and a submarine captain in the American Navy (Commander Dwight Towers). Though the scope of this book goes far beyond their personal experiences. The premise of the novel is that countries in the northern hemisphere of the world had a conflict and eventually dropped cobalt bombs on one another. Then those country's allies came to their aid and they dropped more dirty bombs on their enemies. The continued to do this until the entire hemisphere was either destroyed by the powerful shockwaves or the invisible radiation. .
A good portion of this book takes place at sea onboard a submarine sent to probe into the radiated areas attempting to find at one time an area that supposedly had a dissipated radiation level. Yet the majority of the novel is set in Australia, this shows the reader the reactions to the death that they are to face. As everyone knows that the radiation will seep to all corners of the earth, no one attempts to run from it. In Peter Homles" town one can see some strange reactions to the impending death. The theory is that the "end" will come sometime in September, give or take a few days or weeks due to wind, yet people are anticipating and planning for the summer ahead (Australian summer is the opposite of ours). They react almost as if they won't get the radiation sickness. A specific instance of such would be Commander Towers of the USN. He believes and freely voices that after his second tour onboard the USS Scorpion (the submarine he commands) that he is going home to his wife and children in Mystic, Connecticut.
In reading this book one can better understand the devastation power of the nuclear bomb. Especially in today's terrorist oriented warfare one is more aware of what type of destructive power those "insignificant" third-world countries have.
