The Light on the Horizon

Abstract

American cities have never experienced modern total war, leaving Americans to imagine the impacts of catastrophic warfare on their urban centers. This article examines post-1945depictions of the death of U.S. cities in films, short stories, and novels from the “thriller,” “future war,” and science fiction genres since 1945. Cities are conspicuous by their absence from fictions of future war and its impacts, often disappearing offstage to allow the plot to follow survivors in small-town and rural settings. This pattern spans depictions of the immediate days after atomic bombing (or a surrogate disaster such as a stray meteor or plague) and stories set decades or centuries after the Big Blowup. Cities are often depicted as sources of danger even in their death throes and after, supporting the conclusion that these narratives express the strong fear of cities and the preference for middle landscapes that have long marked American culture.