Although, I don't really agree that they're "just" that.
> they both seem to be about lessons of past civilizations more than the future
Sure, writers are going to learn from the past and write about current concerns. Even Sci-Fi does that. Dune has
"this one drug is the most valuable thing in the galaxy ... and we mine it in the desert" - it's very 1960s.
Collection of hardline religious insurgents in desert defeat superpower? Very 2021.
(the inspiration is clear, e.g. Fedaykin => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedayeen )
That combo of religious tribesmen in desert robes with traditional weapons, on the ground; and expensive, hi-tec military hardware overhead, which has a distinctive look, is quite the contemporary version.
A LOT of science fiction is "X in space". The Hammer's Slammers stories are "Vietnam in space". The Honor Harrington novels are "Napoleonic naval warfare in space".
I listened to Asimov's Foundation trilogy on Audible in the past 2 years and greatly enjoyed it. I hate the TV series. At this point I'm just watching the episodes to see how bad the trainwreck can get. Villenueve's Dune was like a palate cleanser for me Saturday. It's been 20 years since I read the book, but I grew up in the 90's with David Lynch's movie and always really enjoyed it. Dune 2021 felt like a faithful book rendition with some of the best visual/stylistic influences from David Lynch, but without his worst excesses of weirdness.
>>>The last time someone tried to pull this conquering stuff was almost 100 years ago and it was doomed from the start.
Arguably none of the conquest-minded leaders since the late 1700s have been successful, almost always because they've been fighting against larger economies of similar technological/industrial development. Also, offensive technology has become so destructive that closely-fought wars leave too much of the "target" economies completely devastated and not much of a prize. That doesn't mean a) tech won't develop to shift the balance towards protection (such as the shields in Dune) b) the next megalomaniac might start from a better existing powerbase, such as, say....China in 2050.
> FH: It’s my contention that feudalism is a natural condition of human beings…not that it is the only condition or not that it is the right condition…that it is just a way we have of falling into organisations. I like to use the example of the Berlin Museum Beavers. You ever come across this?
> WM: No.
> FH: Well my…the numbers are going to be wrong but it’s on this order… Before World War II there were a number of families of beaver in the Berlin Museum. They were European beaver. They had been there, raised in captivity for something on the order of seventy beaver generations, in cages. World War II came along and a bomb freed some of them into the countryside. What did they do? They went out and they started building dams.
> ALL: (Laughter)
> WM: Wow! Wow!
> FH: Now tribal organisation…feudalism is tribal organisation…
> WM: Oh, yes.
> FH: And that’s what I’m talking about. So, tribal organisation is a natural organisation of humankind. We tend to fall into it, given any chance at all, given the proper stresses, or given the proper lack of stresses.
To me it's more likely that there are these one or 2 guys who used to rule with this outdated view of the world, than to think that many are secretly puisuing such a vain and tedious thing as ruling the world