Rise And Fall

To recapitulate from several earlier posts:

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History is a future history series of twenty installments;

eleven installments are set during the period of slower than light (STL) space travel whereas the remaining nine are set during the later period of faster than light (FTL) space travel;

the entire History could be collected in two omnibus volumes corresponding to these periods;

the STL period subdivides into four episodes set during the period while the UN is becoming a world government and seven works set within the Solar Union, an alliance between the governments of the Earth-Luna system and the Martian and Venusian colonies;

the FTL period has two stories set during a period of early interstellar exploration and colonization, six (of which most of us have read only four) set in the Stellar Union and one set in a much later Galactic civilization;

no installments are set either during the Second Dark Ages, which separate the Solar Union from the early interstellar period, or during the Third Dark Ages, which separate the Stellar Union from at least two interstellar Empires, then the Galactic civilization;

(this contrasts with the later History of Technic Civilization which has one pivotal story during the Time of Troubles separating the Solar Commonwealth from the Terran Empire and one set during the Long Night separating the Terran Empire from the Allied Planets and later civilizations);

the STL period begins with Europe recovering from World War III and ends with Earth, although not the entire Solar System, sliding into the Second Dark Ages;

the important figure of Fourre, who had fought in World War II, appears in the opening two stories of the History and is invoked in "Brake," the concluding story of the Solar Union period;

Fourre's man, Stefan Rostomily, appears in the opening story but dies before the second;

however, Rostomily's clones continue to work for Fourre and a later clone even appears in "Brake";

the even more important figure of Valti remains off-stage although he initiates the science of psychotechnics which is still practiced in the later Galactic civilization;

in the STL period, there is a rise to an almost utopian economy but then a fall to the Second Dark Ages;

in the FTL period, there is a rise to the Stellar Union, a fall to the Third Dark Ages and interstellar imperialism, then a rise to the vast and powerful Galactic civilization.