Mention Books In Favor Of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Original Title: | The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire |
ISBN: | 0375758119 (ISBN13: 9780375758119) |
Edition Language: | English |
Setting: | Roman Empire |
Description Concering Books The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Length: 126 hrs and 31 mins The History of the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire was written by English historian Edward Gibbon & originally published in six quarto volumes. Volume 1 was published in 1776, going thru six printings; 2-3 in 1781; 4-6 in 1788-89. It was a major literary achievement of the 18th century, adopted as a model for the methodologies of historians.The books cover the Roman Empire after Marcus Aurelius, from 180 to 1590. They take as their material the behavior & decisions that led to the eventual fall of the Empire in East & West, offering explanations.
Gibbon is called the 1st modern historian of ancient Rome. By virtue of its mostly objective approach & accurate use of reference material, his work was adopted as a model for the methodologies of 19-20th century historians. His pessimism & detached irony was common to the historical genre of his era.
Although he published other books, Gibbon devoted much of his life (1772-89) to this one work. His Memoirs of My Life & Writings is devoted largely to his reflections on how the book virtually became his life. He compared the publication of each succeeding volume to a newborn.
Gibbon offers an explanation for why the Roman Empire fell, a task difficult because of few comprehensive written sources, tho he wasn't the only historian to tackle the subject. Most of his ideas are taken from what few relevant records were available: those of Roman moralists of the 4-5th centuries.
According to Gibbon, the Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions because of lost of civic virtue. They'd become weak, outsourcing defence to barbarian mercenaries, who became so numerous & ingrained that they took over. Romans had become effeminate, incapable of tough military lifestyles. In addition, Christianity created belief that a better life existed after death, fostering indifference to the present, sapping patriotism. Its comparative pacifism tended to hamper martial spirit. Lastly, like other Enlightenment thinkers, he held in contempt the Middle Ages as a priest-ridden, superstitious, dark age. It wasn't until his age of reason that history could progress.
Identify Epithetical Books The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Title | : | The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire |
Author | : | Edward Gibbon |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | abridged |
Pages | : | Pages: 1312 pages |
Published | : | August 12th 2003 by Modern Library (first published 1776) |
Categories | : | History. Nonfiction. Classics. Ancient History. Historical |
Rating Epithetical Books The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Ratings: 3.96 From 10859 Users | 480 ReviewsAssessment Epithetical Books The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Although the Empire teeters almost from the beginning, it takes a long time to fall. It turns out the fall, if not the decline, was all the fault of Christianity. And evil, thoroughly debauched emperors, like Gordion, Commodus, and Palpatine. With Gibbon's assistance, they fall in the best prose possible. I was going to insert a few of my favorite passages here, but there were about 6 volumes of them, so I desisted.I have a question that I think you might be able to help me with: should we send this book into space? You know, download it into a golden thumb driveor perhaps seal a nice leather-bound set in a containerstrap it to a rocket, and let it float like the Voyager space probe for all of time. There are weighty reasons for answering in either the positive or the negative. Let us examine them.On the one hand, we have every abominable act, every imaginable vice, every imprudent lunacy able to be
I started reading this tome in 1990. It was a gift from my mother, the only gift that I have truly valued, because it revealed to me the harshness and indifference of the world, that virtue and stoicism are a leader's better qualities, and that money is the corrupter of any body politic.This book has more relevance to American politics than at any time in this Republic's 235 year history. The central thesis is provocative: Is moral education enough to stem the tide of political corruption?In a
Description: Edward Gibbons masterpiece, which narrates the history of the Roman Empire from the second century A.D. to its collapse in the west in the fifth century and in the east in the fifteenth century, is widely considered the greatest work of history ever written. This abridgment retains the full scope of the original, but in a breadth comparable to a novel. Casual readers now have access to the full sweep of Gibbons narrative, while instructors and students have a volume that can be read
Gibbon expressed the hope that his book would be read for two centuries.I first dipped into various volumes of this work in 1972, when I was studying Ancient History (Greek and Roman) at Launceston Matriculation College. Id read it at the Launceston Library, initially as part of my search for different sources of information about the Roman Empire. No, I didnt (then) read the entire six volumes. I didnt have time. I was busy imagining my future, studying hard, wondering about possibilities.Now,
The history of human civilization and society is basically a continuum of idiots, sociopaths, murderers and bores, punctuated by the occasional rational individual whose life is cut short by those very sociopaths that succeed him. Gibbon's classic documents a tiny cross-section of some of the most lamentably pathetic mistakes and awful personalities this doomed species has ever suffered. Oh, how times have changed.
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