Escape from Rome! Would that thou couldst! A number of months ago, I stumbled across Walter Scheidel’s Escape From Rome, which I thought was just the bestest book on Rome ever—the bestest I had ever read, at least—arguing that Rome “fell” in very large part because its creation was an anomaly. Unlike the other “classic”…
Tag: Edward Gibbon
Why did the Roman Empire fall? The horse!
A few months ago, I ran a seven-part collection of near-random ruminations on Edward Gibbon’s monumental The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, not quite a book report, since I only read about two thirds of Gibbon’s work. Gibbon is famous/infamous for summing up his account of the D&F with the sentence “I have…
Edward Gibbon, Part VII
In Part I of this near-random collection of jottings, I remarked that Edward Gibbon, despite his near-obsessive concern with politeness and polish, tells you more about the sex lives of historical figures than virtually any modern historian. I also remarked that his modern-day fans, despite their frequently amazing levels of erudition and enthusiasm, studiously avoid…
Edward Gibbon, Part VI
In Part I of this near-random collection of jottings, I remarked that Edward Gibbon, despite his near-obsessive concern with politeness and polish, tells you more about the sex lives of historical figures than virtually any modern historian. I also remarked that his modern-day fans, despite their frequently amazing levels of erudition and enthusiasm, studiously avoid…
Edward Gibbon, Part V
In Part I of this near-random collection of jottings, I remarked that Edward Gibbon, despite his near-obsessive concern with politeness and polish, tells you more about the sex lives of historical figures than virtually any modern historian. I also remarked that his modern-day fans, despite their frequently amazing levels of erudition and enthusiasm, studiously avoid…
Edward Gibbon, Part IV
In Part I of this near-random collection of jottings, I remarked that Edward Gibbon, despite his near-obsessive concern with politeness and polish, tells you more about the sex lives of historical figures than virtually any modern historian. I also remarked that his modern-day fans, despite their frequently amazing levels of erudition and enthusiasm, studiously avoid…
Edward Gibbon, Part III
In Part I of this near-random collection of jottings, I remarked that Edward Gibbon, despite his near-obsessive concern with politeness and polish, tells you more about the sex lives of historical figures than virtually any modern historian. I also remarked that his modern-day fans, despite their frequently amazing levels of erudition and enthusiasm, studiously avoid…
Edward Gibbon, Part II
In Part I of this near-random collection of jottings, I remarked that Edward Gibbon, despite his near-obsessive concern with politeness and polish, tells you more about the sex lives of historical figures than virtually any modern historian. I also remarked that his modern-day fans, despite their frequently amazing levels of erudition and enthusiasm, studiously avoid…
Edward Gibbon, Part I
When I was a boy, back in the fifties, the Sunday papers were still a big deal. The Sunday paper, a full-color, four-color marvel in a black and white world, was a sensation when it emerged around 1900, bringing hours of entertainment for everyone in the family, and fifty years later the institution was still…