Rebuilding society from the ground up

[Temujin]

If we get knocked back to a pre-industrial society, we're probably going to die. Last I checked, few people possess the skills that we would need to begin rebuilding following a nuclear war, without resorting to computers. Also, many of the nescessary people will be in cities, which naturally will be targetted for nuclear death, so they won;t be around to give advice.

We won't necessarily die, but we can pretty much forget about living any kind of existence more advanced than a pre-industrial society until our species goes extinct.

On a side note, is this theoretical nuclear conflict going to level all the cities but leave many of the towns relatively intact, or will there just be a few surviving small towns?

I don't think it will matter. The small towns are dependent upon the big cities transportation hubs, which are now gone. Local farmland and/or resources may provide them with enough to survive, or it may not. And they're going to be flooded with large numbers of refugees fleeing the radiation filled death traps that the cities have now become. And then of course there is fallout. Aside from a select few lucky areas, one way or another life is going to go back to being nasty, brutish and short for most people.