Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Rating:
Summary: Short recap of 500 years of Roman decline in 200 pages
Review: Eventhough this is an abridgement of Gibbon's
great treatise it is a shame that the subject is treated in such a cursory fashion. Little attention is given to one emperor before the reader is pushed on to the next one.

Hadas' edition does give us some of the early history of growth of Christianity, one of the underlying causes of the downfall.

All in all, I found myself wanting more detail. After reading this book I felt like a had read the equivalent of a Chinese meal. It was OK but I soon found myself wanting more

Rating:
Summary: An Effective Abridgement
Review: I think the other reviewer misunderstands Hadas's intention. As Hadas states in his introduction, this book is intended as digest and, hopefully, a guide to the fuller work. Hadas pragmatically realizes that most readers are unlikely to undertake a multi-volume book that totals literally thousands of pages; but his abridgement -- rendered with admirable coherence for such an undertaking -- provides both a taste of the fuller work and hopefully a temptation to read it. If more scholars like Hadas existed, the great works of literature and antquity might have a broader readership today.