Reviews for History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 1

The average rating for History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 1 based on 1 review is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-09-14 00:00:00 Ricardo Alonso De Linaje "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, poverty, and rapine"; "rapine and oppression"; "violence and rapine"; "rapine and cruelty"; "rapine and torture"; "rapine and corruption"; "rapine and disregard"; "War, rapine, and freewill offerings" AND that is all just volume one. An important and interesting work, that moves with a quicker pace than its size or age would suggest. There was some drudgery with the minor, post Constantine emperors. I was also not as excited by the HRE sections as I was by the sections on the Rise of Islam, the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire, and the Crusades. Those sections alone are why I rated the second half 5 stars and not 4. Anyway, a fantastic read. Ironic to finish it right after S&P lowers our national credit rating and our senators again fail to do anything productive.