History of the Decline and Fall of

Customer Reviews

• Easy to follow information/historical caracters

  This is a complex but quick review on the cast of caracters who made Rome, its history, and culture. Since I love this type of ancient history, I find this book almost like a reference. Not a novel for sure. One can quickly find the era and events.

• A treasure

  edited by Hans-Fredrich Mueller
  
  I finally finished this massive treasure, which isn't even exhaustive. And I can't imagine the colossal task in both time and energy it took to write it. It took Gibbon twelve years, from 1776 to 1788. I find it more than a coincidence that he began writing in the year of our independence. Even in this abridged form (which is what you will more likely come across) it is still a huge undertaking; though Mueller, in his critical forward, tells us it is necessary for it to become readable. Mueller also says he prided himself in being meticulous and accurate while still being manageable. And very helpful is the addition of dates bracketed throughout the text. An index would have been useful. In Boorstin's introduction he cites the major impact this work had on him; he calls it intimate. I would have never thought of it in that way, but now after ingesting all six volumes I understand why he calls it intimate. Gibbon does not mince words either. His work will always be remembered and its impact can still be felt today. He is an artist, like no one I have read before. Keep a dictionary handy. I also recommend reading the forward and the introduction, especially after studying Gibbon's great work. They take into question Gibbon's devotion to Christianity and his offensiveness towards it. I see Gibbon as mixed in his beliefs, though he wrote as he saw it; and I find that he saw the truth when he found it. Did he believe infrastructure was valued over its people?
  
  The role of emperor was not a secure job. "Such was the unhappy condition of the Roman emperors that, whatever might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the same." The polytheistic Roman Empire was very much a melting pot (half slaves) and within it were many schisms. I see parallels---such as the oppressive taxes, the corrupt politicians, the tyrannical government, the effemination, and the endless warfare---to our United States, and a warning for our future.
  
  So what caused the fall? For Gibbon, the gradual decline began after Christ, until the eventual fall some fifteen hundred years later. Chapters are built upon the reigns of the emperors as they came to power, except where he periodically inserts chapters concerning the Christian influence, the Christian persecutions, the corrupt church, the persecution of the church toward others, the Crusades, the rise of Islam, the debilitating taxes and, towards the end, he concentrates on the impact by the surrounding nations. The Empire became a black hole and split to form an East and a West---the West to totally collapse. There were many causes: the slow introduction of Christianity over Paganism and the conversion to it, the collapse of the military, the always and increasing threat of outside peoples, alienating allies and provoking enemies, the corruption within (the people), and of course the self righteous emperors. Entropy would take over and finally lead to the collapse of the infrastructure.
  
  Rome was both a curse and a blessing for Christianity. Many were converted, but the power of Catholicism and the Pope led to the eventual corruption and apostasy of the church. We have our many deists and polytheists just as the Romans. Do you not find a familiarity to us and the Romans?
  
  LORD bless
  Scott

• misidentified

  this book is not noted as COMPLETELY INTERRUPTED by a catholic editor and is VERY annoying to read this way! Give me Gibbons original!

• Better

  The price is right, but I found the text more or less unreadable. Am now trying the $9.99 version (in sample), will see if one gets what one pays for.
  
  The above was written before the published juploaded a new version. The type face is MUCH better (or I am in a better mood). It still looks too much
  like a ms., with lots of spaces between some words (problems of a fixed width font) and footnotes placed in the text. But the new version is clearly readable.
  
  For my taste I will go with the $9.99 version (I am going to spend quite a while with Gibbon), but this version surely now is very good value.

• Reading Gibbon

  For those with as much interest in the English language as in Roman history, Gibbon is one of the greatest stylists who ever lived. Moreover, his dramatic sense is manifest not only in the events he describes,but also in the very sentences he uses to describe them.
  
  I wonder what he would think of the language of the internet.
  
  Bless the internet for making Gibbon available for everybody; and Gibbon for making great language available on the internet!