The cover calls it a great work of science fiction but it's more just a good example of Fifties post-apocalypse fiction. Oh, there's a nuclear war. It's the country folk that survive because they have the good morals and skill set to keep going where the city folk were pampered and self-indulgent and...wait, Brackett turns this on its head? The protagonist wishes cities were back? The country folk turn out to be dour assholes who would rather kill people than let any sort of technological progress happen? What were you trying to say? I feel like it's almost a reaction of sorts to the smug freeman-on-the-land bullshit a lot of SF authors were pimping in the 50s (Heinlein). Unfortunately the characters feel a little stock and the conclusion is hollow and unsatisfying. Still, a good, solid, middle-of-the-road example of the great first wave of atomic post-apocalypse.