The End of Eternity

In The End of Eternity, a secret organization called Eternity exists outside time and makes surgical interventions into human history — 'Reality Changes' — that minimize pain and reduce catastrophe. Its Technicians compute the Minimum Necessary Change to produce the Maximum Desired Effect. Each Change smooths a rough edge of history. Over centuries this produces a human species that has been prevented from developing interstellar travel — because the technologies that would enable it also carry risks Eternity has judged unacceptable. Protagonist Andrew Harlan eventually destroys Eternity from within, restoring the un-optimized trajectory that leads humanity out of the solar system. The novel is Asimov's clearest fictional statement against the optimization of human history by a sufficiently capable but insufficiently wise governing intelligence.