content: I liked this book. I don't really have anything profound to say, I'm only writing a review because for some reason Amazon is not giving me the option of rating the book without a review.Asimov seems to have an interesting twist on European history in this book, as the events that occur in it seem to parallel the fall of the Roman Empire, the successor Germanic kingdoms, and the rise of the merchant class in the Renaissance. Understanding the history of Western Civilization probably has given me a fun comparison to Asimov's fictional Galactic history.