About this title: By the end of the fifth century, Roman rule had vanished in western Europe and much of northern Africa. Applying the scholarship, perspective, and narrative skill that defined his monumental "Caesar," Goldworthy explores how Rome fell.
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Yale University Press
Date Published: 2009-05-12
ISBN-13:9780300137194ISBN:0300137192
Description: New. This is a paperback ARC with same cover and publisher stickers. This book is the same isbn, but is a paperback. New, unread, unused & in perfect condition with no damaged or missing pages. Great Copy. Ships Lightning Fast. read more
Edition: First Edition; First Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Yale University Press
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780300137194ISBN:0300137192
Description: New in New dust jacket. 9780300137194. New and unread first edition, first printing cloth hardcover and dust jacket in excellent condition. Protective mylar cover.; 1.7 x 9.4 x 6.3 Inches; 560 pages; Collectible. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Yale University Press
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780300137194ISBN:0300137192
Description: Good. Cover and pages may have some wear or writing. Binding is tight. We ship daily Monday-Friday. Delivery Confirmation included on all domestic orders. read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: Yale Univ Pr
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780300137194ISBN:0300137192
Description: New. By the end of the fifth century, Roman rule had vanished in western Europe and much of northern Africa. Applying the scholarship, perspective, and narrative skill that defined his monumental "Caesar, " Goldworthy explores how Rome fell. read more
"In the introduction, Mr. Goldsworthy makes clear that this is not a book about the American Empire and its prospects. It's only about Rome and the ancient world, and its purpose is to engage the scholarly historiographical debates about the demise of the Roman Empire.
Well, it turns out that I like my history leavened with some mythology; I want to draw sweeping moral conclusions from the tidbits of history I pick up. This is interesting stuff, but too crisp for my taste right now (I abandoned it midway)."
"I loved this book. It's a highly readable history of Rome beginning with the reign of Marcus Aurelius and ending just as the united Arab tribes conquered more than half of the lands of the Eastern Roman Empire.
I have to confess that I wasn't sure if I wanted to read this book, so I downloaded it off of bittorrent. I was amazed to even find it. But as I was getting into the book I felt guilty and bought the Kindle version. This had the advantage of allowing me to read it on my iPhone during a boring week long series of meetings and trainings.
The maps are worthless on the Kindle version of this book, so have a handy reference map nearby. I used the trusty Penguin Historical Atlas of Rome, which allowed me to find the places mentioned in the book. I also relied on the Atlas's handy summaries during the few periods when I got confused.
One other minor complaint about How Rome Fell is that characters just pop up and then disappear for a few pages and then pop up again. For people without photographic memory or an encyclopedic knowledge of Roman emperors, their many usurpers, and tribal leaders.
There is an excellent timeline and glossary at the end of the book. This is difficult to use on the Kindle. Also, the footnotes aren't accessible as links, which was disappointing. In fact, maybe this is one of the few books that would be better to read on paper rather than on the Kindle.
"Interesting book, but the reviews seem to call it "scholarly", which it isn't really.
The chapter on early Christianity and Constantine is what made me skeptical of the whole. The author is out of his natural element here and it shows to anyone who knows the history. The footnotes in this chapter go to some primary sources and basically 2 secondary sources, which the author appears to think are definitive.
There is a completely legitimate debate about the extent to which Constantine understood Christianity and monotheism, which the author essentially discards with a brief conclusory brush-off. Similar issues with his treatment of Julian.
Also, the footnotes are lacking in rigor. One sentence says something like "Constantine only chose to be baptized on his deathbed, which was a common practice at the time as it was seen as unfitting to sin after receiving baptism" .... with no footnote.
Because I could easily see the author's limitations in this chapter, I lost trust in his treatment of most of the rest of the book, which I am not equipped to judge for its historicity.
However, it's still an interesting read.
Goldsworthy's biography of Caesar is much better."
"A nice thing about this history is that Adrian Goldsworthy states his thesis very clearly in the introduction: as a scholar of the early phases of the Roman Empire, he wishes to provide a different perspective on its fall; he is kind enough to acknowledge the recent classics in the genre (by my reckoning, Heather is the favorite by a fair distance) while insisting that these other accounts have been rather one-dimensional, focusing on the changes in societal structure brought on by Christianity or immigration while not necessarily putting together the whole picture.
Goldsworthy's work only gets three stars due to the lofty expectations which he set out in the introduction. His scholarship is thorough enough to always provide the "what" and often to explain the "how," and these are both done in a satisfying, if somewhat chronologically dry fashion. The approach is to highlight the structure of the Roman Empire during its last truly stable period (up until Marcus Aurelius), moving on to contrast it with the later periods, where many institutions kept similar names, but worked differently, and a drastically expanded bureaucracy failed to maintain political coherence on a larger scale.
In any case, where "How Rome Fell" fails is the "why." Of course, it makes sense that the Roman Empire was doomed to fail due to the fact that every emperor had to spend the majority of his mental capital obsessing over potential internal rivals and usurpers, thereby weakening the whole body's ability to respond to external threats. However, a work of this ambition ought to take a glance at answering why this was the case. Why was it necessarily true that ultimate power in the Empire became more and more difficult to grasp? Why did the Eastern Empire survive for so much longer on the same slippery slope? It is these questions that are never posed, and a truly worthy history of the fall of the Roman Empire would at least try."
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