“The fall of Empire, gentlemen, is a massive thing, however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity—a hundred other factors. It has been going on, as I have said, for centuries, and it is too majestic and massive a movement to stop.”
Isaac Asimov, Foundation
I read the Foundation Trilogy in the summer of 1969 and it convinced me to declare Psychology as my major that fall when I entered college-along with about 50% of the freshman class. When I finally took a psych class in my sophomore year I immediately changed my major to Russian. I went on to become a Russian linguist in the USAF stationed in West Berlin, and never regretted it. However, I highly recommend the trilogy.
My favorite books to this date have been: 1) The Foundation Trilogy (now I think a series more than a trilogy), 2) Atlas Shrugged, and 3) The Fourth Turning. Dune and Hyperion/Endymion are up there, as well as The Creature of Jekyll Island. Of course, The Fourth Turning and Jekyll are not so much works of literature as much as tomes concerning history and socioeconomics. But although fiction, the Foundation Trilogy and Atlas Shrugged also are tomes concerning history and socioeconomics.