It’s quite widely known that Issac Asimov’s Foundation saga was inspired in part by The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
But that’s sometimes wrongly interpreted to mean that the Foundation is the Roman Empire in space
The major event in Roman history that Asimov took inspiration from was the shift in the centre of gravity of the Roman empire from Rome to Constantinople
But another Empire experienced a similar shift of power
The British Empire
Which fought a war in an attempt to keep hold of some minor colonies, which had grown too big and would become the new centre of a new empire
The American Empire
I’m quite happy that this video essay tracing the parallels between American history and Asimov’s Foundation has made it to 125k views.
I only meant to make a quick video to help people understand what they were missing if they watched the awful Foundation tv show. Read the books instead!
🔗👇👇👇👇👇
PS – one reason the show is so bad it seems is that it’s fallen victim to the trend for tv shows that people only half watch while doing other stuff on their phone. So generally when people say they like the show they mean it’s ok as background noise. Sigh.
Damien Walter 