THE SCIENCE FICTIONAL FOUNDATION UNDER PAUL KRUGMAN, PART ONE
Paul Krugman, a few years ago, wrote at length to extol the magnum opus of science fiction grandmaster, Isaac Asimov, the Foundation Trilogy. Prof. Krugman’s reflections thereon are of keen interest.
I met Asimov once, 40+ years ago, at a world science fiction convention. I even got him to autograph my Science Fiction Book Club copy of “The Foundation Trilogy.” This compilation of three novels is an SF classic. I, then and since, found it too dull to read in full. (Asimov’s I, Robot then was much more engaging to this long-ago SF geek. But nothing Asimov wrote really rivaled Heinlein’s early, nor Arthur C. Clarke’s best, novels.)
Prof. Paul Krugman, galactically more influential than me, declares that he found the the Foundation Trilogy his formative inspiration. Therein hangs a tale: one of technocracy, which he exalts, versus mere common sense.
Prof. Krugman’s reflections were published in the UK Guardian at the end of 2012: Paul Krugman: Asimov’s Foundation novels grounded my economics (apparently, a reprint of Prof. Krugman’s introduction to the Folio Society edition of the same). Prof. Krugman there wrote, “I grew up wanting to be Hari Seldon, using my understanding of the mathematics of human behaviour to save civilisation.”
There is an unsubtle irony to Prof. Krugman’s opening observation that:
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