pick
A tale of how complacency allows civilization and order to give way to anarchy, and finally oppression ("the old world yields to its decline in the indifference of half sleep", as the afterword puts it), about as evergreen a theme as you could come up with. Appropriately, the setting seems to exist outside of time, melding features of the ancient and modern world in a way that feels like a fable from an alternate universe.
The_Penniless_Author I didn't know much about Junger's background as part of the German right-wing circa WWI and his eventual criticism of and opposition to the Nazi Party by the time of WWII (which is covered in the foreword), but it casts the story in an interesting light, especially given his subsequent denials that it contained any specific political messages. 2y