the biological theme of population crash to a biblical theme of populating the world. A 1949 book review says that Earth Abides parallels two biblical stories that shows mankind spreading out and populating the world: Stewart, who specialized in meanings of names, chose names in Hebrew that have appropriate meanings for the biblical theme; this couple who restart the human tribe are symbolically man and mother. In Stewart’s day, most Hebrew dictionaries stated that Ish means "man" (although a more accurate English equivalent is "participant"), and Em means "mother". Both terms figure prominently in the biblical story of Adam and Eve: Ish in Genesis 2:23, and Em in Genesis 3:20. In addition to the Hebraic names in Earth Abides, the story also has a symbol in common with biblical tradition—the snake. Ish encounters a rattlesnake; before this event he is part of a larger civilization. After it bites him, his world changes, just as the snake changes Adam's world in the Genesis story. Adam loses paradise, and Ish finds civilization dead. Aside from the biblical origin of Ish, there is another tale of the fall of civilization that George R. Stewart could have taken account of, the story of Ishi, believed, at the time Stewart was writing, to be the last of his tribe, who lived at Berkeley, where Stewart later taught. Ish is very similar to Ishi, and it also means "man", in the language of a man whose whole tribe was dead. Ishi's story parallels the Genesis and Earth Abides stories, telling of one who has to adapt to a changed world. Genre and style Earth Abides belongs to the subgenre of apocalyptic science fiction featuring a universal plague that nearly wipes out humanity. Other examples include Mary Shelley's The Last Man (1826), Jack London's The Scarlet Plague (1912), Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain (1969) and Stephen King's The Stand (1978). Earth Abides also fits into the "post-apocalyptic" subgenre. It was published in 1949, four years after the end of World War II and in the earliest stages of the Cold War. While post-apocalyptic fiction is now quite common, Earth Abides distinctly predates many similar well-known novels including Alas, Babylon (1959), A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960), and The Last Ship (1988). It is predated, however by The Machine Stops (1909), and René Barjavel's Ashes, Ashes (Ravage, 1943), among others. A common theme of post-apocalyptic works is, "What if