Summary of Jari Käkelä’s “Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Cowboy Heroes”
By: Tyler Nelson
Jari Käkelä claims in this article that, while Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy uses the idea of a declining galactic empire from Edward Gibbon’s famous book The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Asimov also heavily borrows from the viewpoint of manifest destiny and American frontier ideals to portray the galaxy after the fall of its great civilization. Käkelä argues that despite Asimov’s denial that American cultural influences were important in his work, they actually greatly influenced his stories in the Foundation trilogy.
Käkelä goes on to compare the western frontier of America to the science fiction frontier of space and how similar their roles were in their respective genres. He also notes parallels between the rise and fall of religious rule in America and the Foundation series. He then likens the psychohistorian Hari Seldon’s remark that there is destined to be a second galactic empire to John O’Sullivan’s idea of manifest destiny, which settlers used as justification for expanding from the east to the west coast of America. Käkelä also compares the heroes in Foundation to heroes in western movies and books.
This article attempts to show how Asimov’s Foundation trilogy is not only shaped by the work of Edward Gibbon, but also the works of western pulp fiction writers and by early American ideals and history. The connections to manifest destiny and old western themes are made very clear by Käkelä, and this article serves as an excellent resource to better understand Asimov’s writing style.
Käkelä goes on to compare the western frontier of America to the science fiction frontier of space and how similar their roles were in their respective genres. He also notes parallels between the rise and fall of religious rule in America and the Foundation series. He then likens the psychohistorian Hari Seldon’s remark that there is destined to be a second galactic empire to John O’Sullivan’s idea of manifest destiny, which settlers used as justification for expanding from the east to the west coast of America. Käkelä also compares the heroes in Foundation to heroes in western movies and books.
This article attempts to show how Asimov’s Foundation trilogy is not only shaped by the work of Edward Gibbon, but also the works of western pulp fiction writers and by early American ideals and history. The connections to manifest destiny and old western themes are made very clear by Käkelä, and this article serves as an excellent resource to better understand Asimov’s writing style.