Fictional accounts of the end of the world rarely explore the end of humanity; instead they present the end of what we now know and the opportunity to start over. Postapocalyptic Fiction and the Social Contract: 'We'll Not Go Home Again' contends that postapocalyptic fiction reflects one of our most basic political motivations and uses these fictional accounts to explore the move from the state of nature to civil society through a Hobbesian, a Lockean, and a Rousseauian lens.