Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation: Introduction by Michael Di [Hardcover]

Isaac Asimov’s seminal Foundation trilogy—one of the cornerstones of modern speculative fiction—in a single hardcover volume.

It is the saga of the Galactic Empire, crumbling after twelve thousand years of rule. And it is the particular story of psychohistorian Hari Seldon, the only man who can see the horrors the future has in store—a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and violence that will last for thirty thousand years. Gathering a band of courageous men and women, Seldon leads them to a hidden location at the edge of the galaxy, where he hopes they can preserve human knowledge and wisdom through the age of darkness.

In 1966, the Foundation trilogy received a Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series, and it remains the only fiction series to have been so honored. More than fifty years after their original publication, the three Foundation novels stand as classics of thrilling, provocative, and inspired world-building.Isaac Asimov (1920–1992), one of the “Big Three” science fiction masters of his time (along with Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke), is best known for his Robot, Galactic Empire, and Foundation series.

Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer Prize–winning critic forThe Washington Postand the author of the memoirAn Open Bookand of four collections of essays:Readings, Bound to Please, Book by Book,andClassics for Pleasure.
From the Introduction by Michael Dirda

It is late summer, 1941. A young Jewish intellectual, an admirer of Gibbon'sDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire, suddenly finds himself musing about historical determinism, individual initiative and the ideal society. Why did Rome fall? Was the Christian religion a means of preserving ancient culture? What forms of government and economic system are best for mankind? Democratic representation with capitalistic competition? Enlightened despotism? A meritocracy of the best and the brightest?