A dazzling work of science fiction to which Dune , the Foundation trilogy, and 2001: A Space Odyssey owe a major debt. Narrated telepathically by one of the Last Men, Olaf Stapledon's epic history of the future caused a literary sensation when it first appeared in 1930. Over the course of two billion years, it seems, ever more alien versions of humankind will rise and fall -- developing every sort of utopian and dystopian civilization only to descend into savagery again and again, until eventually the Earth's resources are depleted. This abridged edition takes us from the fall of the First Men to the initial efforts of the Fifth Men, the "last Terrestrials," to colonize other planets!.