I've been on an old sci-fi kick, stuff from the 60s and earlier. In reading The Pocket Book of Science Fiction, (published in early 1943), I came across "By the Waters of Babylon," by Stephen Vincent Benét. (Excitingly, the book itself is in near-perfect condition. As a 69-year old paperback. My used book store rocks hard.) Among the better and more engaging post nuclear war disasters I've read. But wait... 1943. And the author actually published it in 1937 before it was included in this anthology. Before the war. Before the Manhattan Project was started. No, the atom bomb was not mentioned specifically, but it felt so much like that was the disaster that I didn't even question it.
Some of the beneficial technology, I can see scientists specifically working towards duplicating the ideal described. The end of civilisation as we know it? I'd like to think that that wasn't a specific goal, at least not to the point of attempting to emulate an awesome story. It's creepy that I at first assumed it was from my 1950s or 1960s literature, before checking the copyright page.
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