List Books Conducive To 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 |
Describe Appertaining To 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 |
Narrative 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.
Rating Appertaining To Books The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Ratings: 3.96 From 10859 Users | 480 ReviewsEvaluate Appertaining To Books The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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,Best narrative history ever written. Gibbon had so many fewer sources and tools than we have today, but his basic conclusions from the late 18th century information he had are still largely correct today.A weakened military and political state that relied heavily on barbarian mercenary soldiers for defense was doomed. The different internal barbarian factions just served to divide the military and political and religious structures to a point to where they were easy pickin's from both inside and
I borrowed the first two volumesamongst my Dad's all-time favouritesfrom his study when I was around fourteen; and my enduring fascination with the Roman Empire, and ancient history in general, most likely stems from a combination of the heady brews of Gibbon's and Tolkien's masterworks, which ignited within me a terrific thirst for mythology, legend, and history that has yet to be slaked. As far as The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is concerned, I believe that Gibbon is the greatest
the vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volumes 1 - 6 = 3589 pages, and I can't think of more than 200 that I would have preferred to have skipped. Love Gibbon's sense of humor, his methodology, his hard bigotry towards the Huns, his soft bigotry towards the Christians, and his ability to find interesting nouns to link with rapine: "idleness,
Avoid this abridged edition of Gibbons classic. It is a huge disappointment to be being fully absorbed in the text and then groan as a cross is marked where a significant portion has been cut. This is depressing and makes for a disjointed unsatisfying read. But, that is not the worst crime of this edition. Every single one of Gibbons footnotes has been removed. Some of his footnotes just give his sources (which are important in themselves), but others comment on the text and continue it, and
I'll never find here my edition, which is a cute set of seven little hardbacks, 6 inches high, from 1904. I thought it would be charming to read this work in such old-fashioned books. I have to report that my bookmark is at p.476 of volume four. That's well more than halfway. But that was the consistent read; I've dipped in, and the portions nearest to my heart -- say, on Attila and on Zingis as he calls him, and on other assorted barbarians -- Theodoric was a great story greatly told -- these I
I want to tell you why I decided to read this original six-volume edition now.The primary reason was that I had just finished revisiting Isaac Asimov's original Foundation trilogy early this year (I thought, at first, to finally get to the other volumes, which I read back when they first appeared, but that was decades ago), and it occurred to me that I had never really settled down with Gibbon for any extended length of time. Asimov's debt to Gibbon is much clearer to me now--he never made a
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