The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Rating:
Summary: Long, yes, but readable and very enlightening.
Review: I am about one third of the way through Volume 2, and am fascinated. It is not that the decline of Rome is a mirror of what is happening in Western civilization today - as so many people think - it is that this history shows us how incredibly far we, as a civilization have come, and how terribly low human beings can sink as a civilization disintegrates. It helps me to realize how precious civilization is, and it seems to me that we take so much for granted because we do not commonly appreciate that we really have made progress as human beings. I think, if you want to consider yourself to be educated about Western civilization, you must read Gibbon, at least the first three volumes. Give it a try; you may be pleasantly surprised, as I was.

Rating:
Summary: Better an abridged version
Review: I have read it in the abridged version Dero A. Saunders did in the fifties, I think. This is like a novel about the Roman Empire, but it cannot be said that is not History. Why not? History is not only what really happened but also the idea of what happened, because it gives us ideas about the ideology of the XVIIIth century in which Gibbon lived and wrote. It's amazing that somebody could create such a great study with the books he could read. It's like Herodotus, they didn't have great academic libraries or the Internet or aeroplanes to fly or money for great Archaeological researches. If you're interested in History, even as an amatheur -specially as an amatheur- this book must be read by you.

Rating:
Summary: The Authoritative Work on the Roman Empire
Review: I purchased all six volumes of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. This work is written in the beautiful and fluid 18th century English. Gibbon is a master author, and the book was extremely well researched, consulting the works of Tacitus, Livy, Suetonius, and Polybius, Roman historians of fame. Volumes 1-3 contains the history of the Roman empire from 180 A.D. to 490 A.D., covering the end of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, to the time when Odoacer usurped the throne of the western empire. Volumes 4-6 contains the history of the eastern empire, from the late 300's to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. I highly recommend both box sets. All volumes together are approximately 3600 pages, and go into detail for pages subjects that are written only for about a few paragraphs in other books. A must for any enthusiast of the history of the Roman Empire.

Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: Its really impossle that there have lived men that know so much, and have brought together so many facts, numbers, stories and sources that they can write a book like this. I think this is and will always be the defenetive book about Roman History. What Edward Gibbon is doing here is maybe even unsurpassed in historywriting at all.

For a very long time I have been looking for this complete version. Here in the Netherlands what they translate is a sort of highlight edition (that will cost you as much as the entire collection in English) That was never the one I wanted to read. This 3 book will tell you the complete history from off the moment the very bad emperor Commodus came to power. This will however not start in a chronological order untill you reach chapter 3 or 4, so before that you get explenation explenation and even more explenation. Mainly about how the stystem was working and how everything came to change after August took power in 27 BC.

From the moment he begins to tell about Commodus, surprisingly less about Marcus Aurelius, he open full scale and does not leave any detail unused. And he is going on till the fall of the empire in 476. That is what have been captured in this 3 first volumes. Volume 4/5/6 deal about the Byzantanian Empire.

With all 6 volumes you speak about a 3800 pages book. And thats quite an achievement. The book itself is majorly famous throughhout history, and its surely impossible that you can begin a study about the Roman empire without having read this book.

If I ever am about to write a book about what kind of historical subject. My god let it be like Gibbon. A MASTERPIECE in every sense of the word.

PS : When you are going to read this books, be sure you take special notice of book 15 and 16, there you will find the now very very famous statements about why he thought Christianity was to be blamed for the deestruction of the Roman Empire

Rating:
Summary: The Best
Review: Modern historians have at their disposal the findings of disciplines such as epigraphy, papyrology, and numismatics, which enable them to chart the course of events more accurately than Gibbon could. In his day, these sciences were in their infancy, and with rare exceptions he depended on the primary works of the ancient historians, who themselves were prone to error and bias. Thus, it is possible today to write a history of the Roman Empire that is significantly more accurate than Gibbon's. All of this is largely beside the point, as Gibbon is a giant upon whose shoulders the pygmies stand. I think it quite probable that he is the greatest writer of non-fiction English prose to ever live (I'll accept arguments on Churchill). He also had an incredible feel for the sweep and grandeur of his subject, and a passionate involvement with his material that is sadly lacking in many works of history (a refreshing recent exception is the ringing defense of Stilicho in "Theodosius: the Empire at Bay," by Williams and Friell). "The Decline and Fall" is one of the greatest works of history and one of the greatest works of literature. It is also an incredibly penetrating analysis of human actions and motivations by a first-rate mind.

Rating:
Summary: Stands with the Greatest Literature of All-Time
Review: Obviously, if you're already here at this page considering Gibbon's great history, the greatest work of its kind in world literature, then you probably know quite a bit about it. What you're wondering is: Is it really worth reading? Will I enjoy reading it? Will it be worth the time I spend reading it? Will I learn anything vital for living my life? Damn good questions! The classics are tough to review, since there are thousands of reviews in all sorts of books and venues, and Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" has received its share of coverage. So here's what you need to know, in my opinion. First, Gibbon is a chore to read. The heavily stylized writing, each sentence constructed like a lovely portico in a magnificent Roman temple, is daunting, even for people who read classics all the time. But give yourself about two weeks of steady reading, and it will begin to click for you, and then you'll really start to love the style if you have any taste or discernment at all. Those elegantly multifarious sentences and paragraphs will begin to read like graceful passages of poetry in an expansive Homeric epic. Second, Gibbon has a mountain of interesting things to say, once you get accustomed to his periodic style. The best way to read this stuff is to read it like a collection of short stories or essays. Don't plunk yourself down one lonely night brave intending to read this overwhelmingly massive tome from start to finish in 6 months or a year. Your ship of Good Hope will soon founder on the rocks of the "Decline's" sheer volume and the unrelenting, exhausting high seriousness of Gibbon. Pick one emperor's story, a section, a few paragraphs even, and just enjoy that one passage, as though you were gazing on a little stained-glass window in some dim corner of a giant cathedral. Later, to get a first taste of the full depth and breadth of Gibbon's approach, take up the deservedly famous chapters on the origins of Christianity, Chapters 15 and 16 in Volume I. That will give you the feel for the mighty swell of his thought and the powerful turn of his ideas. Third, the break-up of the empire is just one of those topics it pays, in many ways and throughout your life of thought and inquiry, to know well. And Gibbon is the best guide, by far, because he has a knack for plot. As scholarly as his work is, Gibbon tells a mean story. It helps a great deal to have a neat summary of Roman imperial history at hand, perhaps one of those excellent books on Rome by Michael Grant, or the Encyclopedia Britannica articles on the Roman Empire, to get the overview you need to keep the narrative straight, so you can concentrate on Gibbon's lofty evaluation of the action and the social and political movements that sway it first one way and then another. So, you see, once you get the style down and you start to enjoy Gibbon's voice and his approach to concepts and argument, then you will really start to profit from knowing this history and Gibbon's presentation of it. It will greatly increase the depth of your understanding of politics, power, social movements, law, religion, ambition, evil, cruelty, human folly, and more. It is one of our greatest treatises, in my view, on human "sin" and misery, leavened with just a pinch, a sadly slight pinch, of sweet human loving-kindness. After all, the Roman Empire was the greatest experiment in the history of humankind in putting an end to our collective misery, with the creation and enforcement of the Pax Romana, the worldwide peace Rome sought to impose on its world for the supposed good of all who fell under her sway. O, the arrogance! Seeing how this great mission half succeeded for a time and then failed is highly instructive. Gibbon really makes you appreciate what the founders of the American Republic achieved, and the great thinkers and doers of American history knew all this stuff backwards. For them and their world, this history was one colossal cautionary tale comprising dozens of lesser cautionary tales. Surely, you can tell by now that I am urging you to read as much of the "Decline and Fall" as you can. It is great history, great writing, great story. It is one of our greatest pieces of literature, in that lofty league with Shakespeare and Dante and Milton and Goethe. It might be a smidgen greater even than their masterpieces, in my eyes. Gibbon's work is at the summit of what you must know to be a civilized and well-educated human being, to know deeply what it means to strive for a good world. But don't be hard on yourself if it takes a long time to get going and to start enjoying Gibbon. You're not alone in that. But the pay-off will almost surely be very satisfying. Please see my interpretation of the star ratings and my other current recommendations at my amazon site.

Rating:
Summary: Still a Classic
Review: Roman Empire history is fascinating because it showed the potential for human development in an efficient system. But it is perhaps more enlightening in showing how a great can degenerate into complete and utter chaos. Gibbon is a great historian and a kind of story-teller who helps the reader understand the phenomena of the rise and the fall of a great empire. A must read!

Rating:
Summary: Arguably the greastest historical work in English
Review: The fact that Edward Gibbon had a sense of humour is forgotton these days. His work is remembered mostly as the proverbial "dry tome" by those who haven't read it. I tell you, that impression just ain't true! After you soak up Gibbon, you'll get frustrated by the colourless prose of most modern historians, or anyone for that matter.

He has a rich sense of narrative that only a few modern historians can match. The reader is transported from the end of the ancient world to the beginning of the modern.(His work, almost grudgingly, takes in the Byzantine Empire up to 1453) As a stylist, his language is unique. The work is worth reading for that alone. I mentioned his humour, which is wickedly ironic and beautifully refined at the same time. You probably won't laugh out loud, but you will be seduced by it. His contempories, especially the stuffy ones, were shocked by his tone, even while they admitted his erudition. His attitude toward Christianity particularly raised the heckles of the establishment. His character sketches are a delight and for those who like action, there's plenty of great battle scenes and palace coups.

Don't be put off by the length of the work. It's worth reading selectively. And it does have its weak points. He didn't like Byzantium at all, for example, and gives a totally misleading impression of that great empire. Also, his "General Impressions on the Fall of the Western Empire" while picturesque, doesn't really make much sense.

Gibbon wasn't sure why, exactly, the Empire fell. Don't expect to be enlightened on that point. He gives lots of theories, but something tells me he wasn't convinced by any of them himself. He was too good an historian to believe we can fully understand that kind of thing.

The cool thing about E. Gibbon is that he remains a maverick. He didn't found a school of thought and certainly didn't follow one. Trying to fit him in a neat hole is pointless. From our perspective, however, his views on "Civilisation" are quite ! smug. He wrote at a time when contempories imagined Europe had only just reached a point higher than that reached by classical civilisation, he imagined the community of European states could never again fall from grace in the same way. We know different.

My advice: Read an edition that has all the footnotes intact. The joy is in the details.

Rating:
Summary: Death of a Republic
Review: The greatest service that this book does is to show clearly the dynamics that occurred at the end of the Republic. Compare the life cycle of the Republic and the Empire to the modern United States. Are you scared yet? You should be.

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Summary: The collapse of Rome and the western world explained.
Review: The quite voluminous "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" is one of the most important books of all times, and is of special interest to the reader who wants to go the extra mile in search of the reasons why the Empire collapsed after almost 1.000 years of existence. Is also a good reminder to everyone of us that, no matter what, all things pass and one world leader is followed by another in a sequence of falling cards. The book, first publishe in 1776, the same year that the "Wealth of the Nations" was published, and the same year the United States declared its independency, is one of the first serious attempts to relate history in a context of sequenced facts where social, political and cultural movements were much more important than the play of personalities. Edward Gibbon lived in Geneva many years and was familiar with the most important intelectual developments of the age, being acquainted with Voltaire and his ideas, reading and writting in many languages but mainly in French. The bibliography he consulted is extensive and, even some 15 centuries after the facts he reports, his is one of the most comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the reasons behind the fall of Rome.

To begin with, he does not list how it all began, that is, it is not his purpose to narrate how the Empire was built. He begins with the Empire as a "fait accompli", with a narrative in the rule of Julius Cesar , the philosopher ruler, and analises with endless detail all the rationale of lack of in each and every ruler's mind, the background of his ascent and the reasons behind the fall of each one of them. The vast majority of Rome's ruler was killed by people who was akin or intimate to the ruler or by members of the Praetorian guard. Also, all the meanings of the empire's hierarchy is explained with a lot of detail, what was the function of a Caesar, what meant to be a senator at the time of Rome apogee, of consulship, etc... Each one of the 3 books, totalling some 2.000 pages, has a very interesting map of Europe, Africa and Asia at the time. A lot of factual information is there to astound the reader with the polyhistoric knowledge of the author. His privileged mind does not permit him to understand that not all the readers speak the languages he does and the text is full of footnotes quotations in Latin and ancient Greek, with no translation whatsoever.

The portrait of the barbarians kings and people is superb and the reader has the opportunity of a face to face contact with Allaric, the king of the Goths, and with Atilla, the king of the Huns. Sure, this trilogy is only focused in the so-called West Empire and its sequel is totally devoted to the East empire, but that is another story.