Isaac Asimov and Science Fiction

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2018

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

In May 1942, the American Isaac Asimov published the first instalment of the Foundation series, which would go on to become one of the most popular works of science fiction ever written. Foundation asks big and hugely imaginative questions about the predictability of human behaviour in a space-age future. Simon Watts introduces excerpts from BBC archive interviews with Isaac Asimov and an early BBC dramatization of the Foundation series.

PHOTO: Isaac Asimov in the 1970s (BBC)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds hello and thank you for
0:30.8	downloading the BBC World Service History Program witness with me Simon
0:35.7	Watts. Today we're going back to May 1942 and the launch of one of the most famous series
0:41.9	of science fiction books, the foundation novels by the American writer Isaac Asimov.
0:48.0	I've been listening to interviews with Isaac Asimov in the BBC Archives.
0:55.0	To me, science fiction is that branch of literature which deals with human response to changes in science and technology.
1:07.0	The only changes worth mentioning in human life have come about as a result of science and technology.
1:14.0	Isaac Asimov had one of the most imaginative minds of the 20th century.
1:21.0	A trained biochemist and true polymath, Asimov wrote several hundred books
1:26.4	ranging from Limerix to science fiction.
1:29.4	He anticipated developments in technology by several decades and explore what they would mean for
1:34.9	humanity. The Foundation books are arguably his most popular work and in 1975 he
1:41.4	told the BBC how he got the idea.
1:44.3	Back in the 1940s, I decided to write a kind of series of historical stories of the future,
1:51.0	a tale of the fall of the Galactic Empire, and the Interregnum that came before
	...

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