Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Edward Gibbon,

Daniel J. Boorstin (Introduction),

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Illustrations),

Hans-Friedrich Mueller (Editor)

3.98 · Rating details · 12,251 ratings · 526 reviews

Length: 126 hrs and 31 mins

The History of the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire was written by English historian Edward Gibbon & originally published in six quarto volumes. Volume 1 was published in 1776, going thru six printings; 2-3 in 1781; 4-6 in 1788-89. It was a major literary achievement of the 18th century, adopted as a model for the methodologies of historians.

The books cover the Roman Empire after Marcus Aurelius, from 180 to 1590. They take as their material the behavior & decisions that led to the eventual fall of the Empire in East & West, offering explanations.

Gibbon is called the 1st modern historian of ancient Rome. By virtue of its mostly objective approach & accurate use of reference material, his work was adopted as a model for the methodologies of 19-20th century historians. His pessimism & detached irony was common to the historical genre of his era.

Although he published other books, Gibbon devoted much of his life (1772-89) to this one work. His Memoirs of My Life & Writings is devoted largely to his reflections on how the book virtually became his life. He compared the publication of each succeeding volume to a newborn.

Gibbon offers an explanation for why the Roman Empire fell, a task difficult because of few comprehensive written sources, tho he wasn't the only historian to tackle the subject. Most of his ideas are taken from what few relevant records were available: those of Roman moralists of the 4-5th centuries.

According to Gibbon, the Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions because of lost of civic virtue. They'd become weak, outsourcing defence to barbarian mercenaries, who became so numerous & ingrained that they took over. Romans had become effeminate, incapable of tough military lifestyles. In addition, Christianity created belief that a better life existed after death, fostering indifference to the present, sapping patriotism. Its comparative pacifism tended to hamper martial spirit. Lastly, like other Enlightenment thinkers, he held in contempt the Middle Ages as a priest-ridden, superstitious, dark age. It wasn't until his age of reason that history could progress.

...more

Get A Copy

Paperback, abridged, 1312 pages

Published August 12th 2003 by Modern Library (first published 1776)

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

Best History Books

3,006 books — 3,307 voters

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Best Books of the 18th Century

346 books — 997 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 3.98 ·

Rating details

· 12,251 ratings · 526 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Sep 14, 2011 Darwin8u rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, aere-perennius

“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

description

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, ...more

flag 114 likes · Like · see review

Feb 23, 2014 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, classics, ancient, 18th-century, non-fiction

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a six-volume work by the English historian Edward Gibbon.

It traces Western civilization from the height of the Roman Empire to the fall of Byzantium.

Volume I was published in 1776 and went through six printings.

Volumes II and III were published in 1781.

Volumes IV, V, and VI in 1788–1789.

The six volumes cover the history, from 98 to 1590, of the Roman Empire, the h ...more

flag 112 likes · Like · see review

May 28, 2008 Tedb0t rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, history

The history of human civilization and society is basically a continuum of idiots, sociopaths, murderers and bores, punctuated by the occasional rational individual whose life is cut short by those very sociopaths that succeed him. Gibbon's classic documents a tiny cross-section of some of the most lamentably pathetic mistakes and awful personalities this doomed species has ever suffered. Oh, how times have changed. ...more

flag 107 likes · Like · see review

Oct 18, 2007 Paul Bryant rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: fans of perfect English prose

Shelves: rome

Well, it's not actually the last word on the Empire. Gibbon hated the Byzantines, thought they were appallingly religious and ineluctably corrupt. So he didn't have a good word to say on the Eastern Empire which lasted 1000 years after the fall of the Western Empire. Modern historians have rehabilitated the Byzantines to a great extent.

You have to give it up for Mr Gibbon and his grossly distended testicles - he smuggled into the universities and libraries of the west a most refreshingly undermi ...more

flag 88 likes · Like · see review

May 30, 2013 Roy Lotz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: this-and-that, one-damn-thing-after-another, highly-recommended-favorites, anglophilia, prose-style, supermassive

I have a question that I think you might be able to help me with: should we send this book into space? You know, download it into a golden thumb drive—or perhaps seal a nice leather-bound set in a container—strap it to a rocket, and let it float like the Voyager space probe for all of time. There are weighty reasons for answering in either the positive or the negative. Let us examine them.

On the one hand, we have every abominable act, every imaginable vice, every imprudent lunacy able to be comm I have a question that I think you might be able to help me with: should we send this book into space? You know, download it into a golden thumb drive—or perhaps seal a nice leather-bound set in a container—strap it to a rocket, and let it float like the Voyager space probe for all of time. There are weighty reasons for answering in either the positive or the negative. Let us examine them.

On the one hand, we have every abominable act, every imaginable vice, every imprudent lunacy able to be committed by man here recorded. After all, this was written by a man who considered history “little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.” Imagine an alien race picking up the capsule and deciphering our language. Imagine the looks on their faces (if they have faces) when they hear of the grotesque bunch of bipeds on the other side of the galaxy who do nothing but rape, pillage, and kill each other. Imagine this happens after our sun explodes or we blow ourselves up; this is the last utterance of an extinguished species. Would we want it to be this? Why not Don Quixote or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?

On the other hand, intimately connected with this narrative of wickedness and stupidity, inextricably intertwined in the fabric of this book, is the genius of its author. Who could read a single page of this great book and not be humbled by the quality of his thought, the care of his method, the power of his prose? If ever there was a document that singlehandedly redeems all of the idiocy our race insistently indulges in, it’s this book. At least the aliens would know that one of us had a good head on our shoulders.

It is impossible to discuss this work without its author. In perusing The Decline and Fall we find innumerable facets of Gibbon: the philosopher, the poet, the politician, the theologian, the strategist, the humanist, the public servant, the lawyer, the yellow journalist, the sage, (and the historian). But what we find, most of all, is Gibbon the lover of life. No man has ever loved more the variegated tapestry of human affairs—from the daily ritual of a serf to the greatest battles ever waged, from the planning of a palace to the marital squabbles of a prince. He will cast a glance at events large and small, weigh the facts with a disinterested hand, and with a knowing nod and amiable wink he will describe them in his inimitable prose. Gibbon views life like well-aged wine; he will take it in sips and draughts, savoring every strain in the flavor—from the musky, rotten odor to the sweet, honeyed tinge—and then discuss it with you at length. He is a connoisseur of life. Won’t you join him for a drink? ...more

flag 60 likes · Like · see review

Mar 03, 2010 Szplug rated it it was amazing

I borrowed the first two volumes—amongst my Dad's all-time favourites—from his study when I was around fourteen; and my enduring fascination with the Roman Empire, and ancient history in general, most likely stems from a combination of the heady brews of Gibbon's and Tolkien's masterworks, which ignited within me a terrific thirst for mythology, legend, and history that has yet to be slaked. As far as The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is concerned, I believe that Gibbon is the greatest pr ...more

flag 36 likes · Like · see review

Nov 26, 2016 Loring Wirbel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The obvious issue to address in reviewing the 3,500-page unabridged edition of Gibbon's masterpiece, is whether the maniacal effort to attack such a work could ever justify preferring it over a single-volume abridged edition. That is an easy call. This work is occasionally tough, often exciting, but in every sense a necessity over any attempts to edit down Gibbon. I tried the 1200-page Modern Library edition and found it fragmented and hard to follow, simply because Gibbon is telling a story tha The obvious issue to address in reviewing the 3,500-page unabridged edition of Gibbon's masterpiece, is whether the maniacal effort to attack such a work could ever justify preferring it over a single-volume abridged edition. That is an easy call. This work is occasionally tough, often exciting, but in every sense a necessity over any attempts to edit down Gibbon. I tried the 1200-page Modern Library edition and found it fragmented and hard to follow, simply because Gibbon is telling a story that defies attempts to hone it down.

Is the language stilted and occasionally hard to follow? Sure. The first three volumes were released in 1776, and the last three in 1787. Not only are the sentences convoluted and overextended in a manner far greater than 19th-century writers like Dickens, but Gibbon is inclined to use quaint, silly, and occasionally racist terms that were common in his era. Notions that racial characteristics could be determined by the latitudinal source of an indigenous people's homeland, or that a national culture could be described as "effeminate," have to be taken with an understanding of the limited intelligence of Western philosophers 250 years ago.

But let's remind ourselves of what Gibbon really accomplished. Without the benefits of online inquiries or Wikipedia, without the easy ability to travel that some historians take for granted, Gibbon did far more than compile a history of the Western Roman empire from the time of Commodius to the collapse of Rome in the 470s, as well as the companion history of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) empire from 325 AD to 1453 AD. On the way, he compiles histories of Christianity (heresies as well as Catholic and Eastern Orthodoxies), Islam (Sunni and Shia), and a host of "barbarian" and tribal cultures such as Franks, Goths, Suevi, Huns, Vandals, Persian (Sassanid and beyond), khanates, Timurid, and every imaginable iteration thereof. Gibbon tells history as it should be told - as a flow of peoples across a landscape, not as a collection of static dates and personages to be memorized in history class (though, truth be told, it would be useful for him to include a few more dates than the years placed in the margins of each page).

It deserves mention that the Catholic Church proscribed this book for more than 200 years, and not only or primarily because of how cruel Gibbon was to the Catholic Church (I for one would call him "cruel but fair," and he often bent over backward to make the case for orthodox interpretations of Christianity). Instead, the main reason the Catholic Church attacked Gibbon is because he described events that really happened. At several points in the last 1700 years, the Catholic Church has tried to claim that certain events in its attacks on heresy, and certain fights between popes and anti-popes, never happened. Gibbon will have none of that, nor will be accept the events in the lives of the saints as being wholly truthful. When he demanded fact-checking on claims of the Catholic Church, it is no wonder the church hierarchy wanted him banned.

Many suggest that Gibbon worked with more care on the first three volumes covering the Western Empire than he did on the final three volumes. It's true that after the attempt by Emperor Justinian to re-take the Mediterranean, the narrative falters a bit. Some critics say that this is because Gibbon found the Greek Orthodox Byzantines to be less palatable than the traditional Romans. It's understandable he would have these feelings, because the Byzantine government and culture did not give rise to any great philosophers and historians, only treacherous rulers who would torture each other in odd lines of succession. After the ridiculous wars of iconoclasm in the eighth and ninth centuries, the rest of Byzantine history was just a slow ride down to the day in the mid-15th century when Constantinople was finally conquered by Ottoman Muslims.

But Gibbon's problems in the final three volumes were really ones of organization. Perhaps because he didn't want to confuse the readers with the strange succession of emperors, Gibbon groups capsule histories of the emperors early on, then goes back to talk about Islam's spread, the schisms between Orthodox and Catholic churches, the meaning of the steppe-warrior invasions (both Zingis Khan and Timur), and even some odd chapters on Roman civil uprisings. There are times in the last two volumes of the history that the reader has to focus to keep the narrative train on the tracks. And the modern reader always must keep access to Wikipedia handy, because Gibbon rattles off some names tangentially that must be looked up and appraised merely to understand the point he is trying to make.

But as challenging as Gibbon's own idiosyncracies are, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire deserves its reputation as the most significant work of history ever accomplished by a single author in the last 500 years. The personality that comes through in the writing shows us that this multi-volume study was not written by committee. Yet the scope of what Gibbon did, writing in 1776, seems far beyond what most modern historians could accomplish with the aid of electronic tools. Maybe Will and Ariel Durant's Civilization series deserves to be placed ahead of Gibbon's for that series' massive size and the equally exquisite writing. Yet the Durants were trying to describe global cultures and their histories in an open and free-flowing way. Gibbon was on a mission to tell a story that had no happy ending, and the reader morbidly follows as though this was the real-world Game of Thrones: the story inevitably will end badly for all concerned, yet we can't put the book(s) down. ...more

flag 34 likes · Like · see review

Jan 18, 2013 Randolph rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction

Best narrative history ever written. Gibbon had so many fewer sources and tools than we have today, but his basic conclusions from the late 18th century information he had are still largely correct today.

A weakened military and political state that relied heavily on barbarian mercenary soldiers for defense was doomed. The different internal barbarian factions just served to divide the military and political and religious structures to a point to where they were easy pickin's from both inside and ...more

flag 24 likes · Like · see review

Jan 16, 2017 Markus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: rome, classics, ancient, history, byzantium, to-review

Reading parts of this again for work, and realised I never reviewed this absolutely massive book.

One of the most fascinating (and distorted) works of history ever written, created by one of the most famous (and biased and opinionated) historians of all time.

Full review to come.

flag 25 likes · Like · see review

Apr 06, 2013 Bettie rated it really liked it

Shelves: ancient-history, film-only, tbr-busting-2015, spring-2015, fraudio

Description: Edward Gibbon’s masterpiece, which narrates the history of the Roman Empire from the second century A.D. to its collapse in the west in the fifth century and in the east in the fifteenth century, is widely considered the greatest work of history ever written. This abridgment retains the full scope of the original, but in a breadth comparable to a novel. Casual readers now have access to the full sweep of Gibbon’s narrative, while instructors and students have a volume that can be re ...more

flag 24 likes · Like · see review

Feb 15, 2016 Alan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-read-in-original-language

Gibbon's great, repeated subject: magnificent, superior ideas reduced by human motives to narrow self-aggrandising brutality. Not all historians are ironists, and few can summarize (albeit in compound paragraphs) complex Christian beliefs in stark contrast to un-Christian behavior (need a Gibbon for current US politics--don't see one): “but as the angels who protected the catholic cause were only visible to the eyes of faith, Theodosius prudently reinforced those heavenly legions with the more e Gibbon's great, repeated subject: magnificent, superior ideas reduced by human motives to narrow self-aggrandising brutality. Not all historians are ironists, and few can summarize (albeit in compound paragraphs) complex Christian beliefs in stark contrast to un-Christian behavior (need a Gibbon for current US politics--don't see one): “but as the angels who protected the catholic cause were only visible to the eyes of faith, Theodosius prudently reinforced those heavenly legions with the more effectual aid of temporal and carnal weapons, and the church of St Sophia was occupied by a large body of the Imperial guards”(II.12) His balanced, Tacitean grammar adds irony.

Every paragraph may be read as a comment on our contemporary politics, because Gibbon writes of character and social structure. Take hypocrisy. Might we not find current U.S. equivalents for Augustus’s “tender respect for a free constitution which he had destroyed.” Gibbon sums up Augustus: “His virtues, and even his vices, were artificial” (Bk I, p.63), I‘ve often quoted.
With a cool head and cowardly disposition, Augustus preserved the names and forms of the ancient administration: “But such was the propensity of the Romans to servitude, that the [military] oath was voluntarily taken by the magistrates, the senators, and the equestrian order, till the homage of flattery was insensibly converted into an annual and solemn protestation of fidelity”(57).
“The corruption of Roman manners would always supply flatterers eager to applaud” and this, our White House in 2017 may equal. Augustus was sensible that “mankind is governed by names,” that Rustan’s Persian offered no words for any form of government except absolute monarchy, while “king” had alarmed even Caesar’s adherents.

For the next couple hundred years the military chose the emperor*; however, after the generals stabbed Aurelian, they felt guilty and declined the purple. So did the Senate, putative selector, decline because of the military tradition. The result: an eight month interregnum, without sedition (275).
During these centuries after Augustus, Christianity grew. “Our curiosity is prompted to inquire by what means the Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the established religions of the earth.” One possible answer, convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, “But as truth and reason seldom find so favorable a reception in the world…we may be permitted to ask…what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth.” 1 Inflexible zeal, 2 future life, 3 pure morals, 4 supernatural gifts, say with languages. (I.XV.383 & 409) This, from the famous chapter XV on Christianity and Judaism, boiled down from a full volume.
Continuing"On the Progress of Christianity," "It is a very ancient reproach, suggested by the ignorance or the malice of infidelity, that the Christians allured into their party the most atrocious criminals, who, as soon as they were touched by a sense of remorse, were easily persuaded to wash away, in the water of baptism, the guilt of their past conduct…" Sounds like the Evangelicals in U.S, Jimmy Swaggart, "I have sinned!" (1988).
He relegates to a footnote a Catholic detail, on miracles that Bernard of Clairvaux assigned to everybody but himself, "In the long series of ecclesiastical history, does there exist a single instance of a saint asserting that he himself possessed the gift of miracles?"
More generally, "The expulsion of demons from the bodies of those unhappy persons whom they had been permitted to torment was considered as a signal though ordinary triumph of religion…and the most convincing evidence of the truth of Christianity." As I learned in a seminar with Sander Gilman (then of Cornell Medical School), disease was conceived as entering from outside the body, and exiting--especially at night, in the case of madness (say, Malvolio's curative dark box in Twelfth Night).
As for Judaism, "The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews…(and their congregation) united the law of Moses and the doctrine of Christ (called Nazarenes)." But in his rationalist admonitory style, "When the tides of the ocean and the course of the planets were suspended for the convenience of the Israelites; and when temporal rewards and punishments were the immediate consequences of their piety or disobedience, they perpetually relapsed into rebellion..and placed the idols of the nations in the sanctuary of Jehovah…." "In contradiction to every known principle of the human mind, that singular people seems to have yielded a stronger and more ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors than to the evidence of their own senses."

Concluding his whole work, Gibbon lists, as he did with the attractions of Christianity, the causes of the Decline and Fall: Voila! Christianity is a principal cause. As for the increase of the public riches of the Church, members were urged to over-tithe “at the expense of their unfortunate children, who found themselves beggars because their parents had been saints”(425, noting Prudentius).
Tertullian recommended Christians flee to avoid murdering, in military service, and also in civil administration. Christianity valued chastity, that some Virgins in Africa disdained flight, "permitted deacons to share their bed and gloried...in their unsullied purity." As for the six Vestal Virgins (their small round temple survives by the Tiber), "It was with the utmost difficulty that Rome could support the institution”(I.415).
Emperors found imaginative ways to execute Christians (see my Lactantius rev); Nero, for example, besides crucifixion, sewed them in the skins of animals, had them devoured by dogs, or burnt as torches for a horse-race in Nero’s gardens (457).
Writing on Theodosius, who in Constantinople suppressed my favorite Arianism, his daughter Galla Placida in Ravenna—where some Arian chapels still exist, showing Christ with a penis. Of course, Theodosius’s basilica is also there. Perhaps my favorite sentence in all Gibbon, the emperor’s excluding Arians from Hagia Sophia, as I began. Gibbon continually contrasts idealism and force, religion and murder.
Toward the end, Gibbon assesses Mohammed, “an illiterate barbarian,” whose relative solitude attests his genius (Volume III, Ch L). Mohammed refused to perform miracles, but the Qu’ran itself, from an illiterate, has been seen as a miracle, though published posthumously. Gibbon makes the great point: “the most arduous conquests of Mohammed were those of his servant, his pupil, and his friend; since he presented himself as a prophet to those who were most conversant with his infirmities as a man”(III.93).

* Emperors from Augustus to the conversion of the Empire under Constantine: Augustus 27B.C.-14A.D., Tiberius 14-37, Caligula 37-41, Claudius 41-54, Nero 54-68, Galla 68-69, Otho 69, Vitellius 69, Vespasian 69-79, Titus 79-81, Domitian 81-96, Nerva 96-98, Trajan 98-117, Hadrian 117-138, Antoninus Pius 138-161, Marcus Aurelius 161-180, Lucius Verus Antoninus 161-169, Commodus 180-192, Pertinax 193 (Jan 1-Mar 28), Didius Julianus 193, Septimus Severus 193-211, Caracalla 211-217, Geta 211-212, Macrinus 217-218, Elagabalus 218-222 (d. age 18), Severus Alexander 222-235, Maximinus 235-238, Gordians I, II, III 238-244, Philip the Arab 244-249, Decius 249-251, Valerian 253-260, Gallianus 253-268, Claudius Gothicus 268-270, Aurelian 270-275, Tacitus 275-276, Florian 276, Probus 276-282, Carus 282-283, Carinus 283-285, Diocletian 284-305, Maximian 286-305, Constantine & Licinius 307-324, Constantine 324-337. ...more

flag 20 likes · Like · see review

Jan 13, 2010 Traveller rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, to-reread

Classic treatment by the eminent historian Gibbon of not only the contributing factors to the fall of the Roman Empire, but a blow-by-blow account of the course of its decline.

For more pertinent thoughts, please see the comment box below.

flag 18 likes · Like · see review

May 26, 2019 Czarny Pies rated it really liked it

From the perspective of the 21st century, this book is quite preposterous. Beginning in 98 AD with the consulship of Trajan in Rome, it finishes in 1493 with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. Thus it starts in the Italian peninsula and finishes in the Middle East. The narrative runs from classical antiquity, passes through the middle ages and concludes in the Renaissance. The scope is too wide and the time frame is absurdly long.

It is of course a remarkable work of scholarship. At ...more

flag 15 likes · Like · see review

Apr 09, 2019 Great Book Study rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: personal-canon, twem-histories, history, twem, ancient, non-fiction, classics, medieval

This history was impressive. Gibbon has a beautiful writing style. He makes reading history (one of the most important histories of the world) so pleasant to read. I will have to reread this someday, and much more slowly.

Here's a blurb from my review (on my blog):

You have heard it said, "History repeats itself," and "One thing we learn from history is that no one learns from history." Well, we have no excuse for this, and that is why everyone should read it. Do not be intimidated because it is ...more

flag 13 likes · Like · see review

Oct 15, 2019 Bryan Alkire rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The edition I just finished was a complete one volume e-book. It runs to 5414 e-pages. Simply put, they don’t publish books like this one anymore. Reading Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire really puts current historiography in perspective. First, a history today is considered magisterial if it runs to 500 pages, heaven forbid that it be two or more volumes after that. Second, most history published today is on social issues or single stand-alone events which become magnified into earthshaking ...more

flag 11 likes · Like · see review

Sep 08, 2017 Aloke marked it as to-read

Shelves: e-owned

I'm sure a whole book could be written just about the history of this book! From the introduction of my abridged edition, edited by Mueller:

"The present abridgment is hardly the first and will likely not remain the last. Each age and each reader will find his or her own Gibbon. We must first ask then why Gibbon's words should be abridged at all. The short answer: because there are so many of them."

For (my own) reference, Mueller's aim was to "preserve the thread" of the "spectacle of the decline ...more

flag 11 likes · Like · see review

Nov 25, 2011 Justin Evans rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history-etc

Hard to know where to begin with this.

His much praised style? Sure, it's better than most historians, but it still bears the scars of the eighteenth century in general, and eighteenth century self-importance in particular. Yes, there's the odd ironic gotcha, but I got the distinct impression that he was shooting fish in a barrel. With a shotgun. An automatic shotgun, like in a video game. Compare, for instance, Swift- he was hunting big game.

The ideology? Only one kind of person could read thi Hard to know where to begin with this.

His much praised style? Sure, it's better than most historians, but it still bears the scars of the eighteenth century in general, and eighteenth century self-importance in particular. Yes, there's the odd ironic gotcha, but I got the distinct impression that he was shooting fish in a barrel. With a shotgun. An automatic shotgun, like in a video game. Compare, for instance, Swift- he was hunting big game.

The ideology? Only one kind of person could read this and think 'oh, it's refreshing how fair and balanced he is.' Basically, if you're the kind of person who thinks there are two (and only two) sides to every story, who also reads revisionist histories without understanding why the authors of said histories feel the need to 'revise,' and who thinks that anything that's been said more than twice deserves to be revised... you'll find this fair and balanced. If, on the other hand, you think that someone who comes to history with an absolute determination to read it through their own highly idiosyncratic beliefs (here- and I say this without knowing what Gibbon actually believed, so I might be wrong- classical republicanism, classical liberalism, and Voltaire-induced anti-clericalism) is likely to write from a skewed perspective... well, you might disagree with the idea that he's anything other than an extraordinarily, perhaps uniquely intelligent, well-read eighteenth century liberal.

I should, though, have started with the breadth of the thing, which is fabulous. Even in abridgment, it's more wide-ranging than almost any history I've ever read. And I was particularly thankful for the editor's work: he included chapters from all the volumes, including a great chapter on the origins of Islam, and a speculative chapter linking 'Paulicianism' to the Cathars (no idea if this is at all accurate). On this basis, I'd far rather read the final volumes in full and skip the first one. I know most people would rather read about Rome than about medieval Europe, or the Eastern Empire, and so on. But I still can't work out why.

So this has all the strengths and all the weaknesses of non-scholarly history, but is stronger and less weak than most of it. In the absence of statistical or archaeological research, the best thing you could do was read everything and try to weed out the facts from the legend, and Gibbon did that better than anyone. This is history as a moral discipline, in which you pick your heroes and your villains and then write (about individuals- groups are ipso facto villainous, except for heretics, merchants and intellectuals) accordingly; it's closer to Dante than historiography. That said, you will learn something; and if you're anything like me, you'll learn the most from the closing chapters. ...more

flag 10 likes · Like · see review

Jul 22, 2020 Jacob Aitken rated it it was amazing

Shelves: the-western-canon, philosophy, the-enlightenment

Gibbon, Edward. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Abridged. Introduction by Daniel Boorstin.

This is an abridged edition. It is 1300 pages long. If you feel like you would get bogged down from the whole work, this is a welcome addition. If you are the type where you want to soak in Gibbon’s magnificent prose, then get the Penguin edition of the full text, which are edited by David Womersley.

Before we begin we need to spend time on Gibbon’s prose style. Like Samuel Johnson he was a master of t ...more

flag 8 likes · Like · see review

Mar 19, 2017 Shyam rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classic-literature, history

I'll review this thoroughly the next time around, but for now, I would just like to direct anyone reading this to three excellent, long, epic works of truly Gibbonian proportions covering Roman History that they may wish to read both before, and after, Gibbon, as I did.

Before Gibbon

I. Theodor Mommsen's A History of Rome is a magisterial 5-volume work published 1854-1856, which begins with the founding of Rome in 753 BC and goes down to the reign of Julius Caesar. This work helped Mommsen win the ...more

flag 9 likes · Like · see review

Mar 08, 2012 Adam rated it did not like it

Shelves: black-comedy, literature-fantastique, heart-of-darkness

Avoid this abridged edition of Gibbon’s classic. It is a huge disappointment to be being fully absorbed in the text and then groan as a cross is marked where a significant portion has been cut. This is depressing and makes for a disjointed unsatisfying read. But, that is not the worst crime of this edition. Every single one of Gibbon’s footnotes has been removed. Some of his footnotes just give his sources (which are important in themselves), but others comment on the text and continue it, and o ...more

flag 7 likes · Like · see review

Jul 22, 2010 Rob Roy rated it liked it

Shelves: 24-ancient-rome

For those who hated to learn dates in history, read this, it will change your mind. It covers 1200 years, and five volumes yet, only has two dates. A masterpiece without doubt, but his subjectivity, and preference for western European history is evident. He covers 300 years history of the Eastern Empire in one chapter.

This book is like an elephant. You eat it one bite at a time. I read two sections between each book I read. Took me a year and a half, but I ate the elephant!

flag 7 likes · Like · see review

Jan 04, 2021 Jonathan Mckay rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: long-read, big-history

1st book of 2021: The Forest and the Trees.

After reading this near 4000 page epic, I found myself made of questions. What is Rome? What is history? What is a book? I don’t know enough to know whether Gibbon threw out the norms, or just wrote this before the norms were created, but Decline and Fall is like trying read a fractal version of game of thrones while playing a memory game about every person you met in elementary school. Is this something you would enjoy? Read on...

First, every other ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Oct 24, 2011 Lee Walker rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history

I have almost finished Volume 1. The first fourteen chapters were excellent. Unfortunately chapter 15 drones on about Christianity, in a way that I don't find very compelling (and normally I am not that averse to the history of religion). Furthermore the edition I have is edited by some religious nut-job who, whenever the topic turns to religion, becomes very excited and starts inserting 10 times as many footnotes as he normally does.

On the whole, however, I am very much enjoying this work. Gibb ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Jun 11, 2011 sologdin rated it it was ok

Shelves: medieval, ancient, condemned-to-repeat-it-apparently

were gibbon a marxist, he might say that the western empire fell because roman citizens slowly transformed through the dialectics of economic and military conquest from virtuous members of a cosmopolis into self-oriented and animalistic lumpenized antisocial nihilists, which would be difficult to dispute conceptually. whether this civic decay is the cause or rather the effect of mass irreversible saturnism remains nevertheless as yet unaddressed by the learned writer.

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Oct 31, 2013 Richard Epstein rated it it was amazing

Although the Empire teeters almost from the beginning, it takes a long time to fall. It turns out the fall, if not the decline, was all the fault of Christianity. And evil, thoroughly debauched emperors, like Gordion, Commodus, and Palpatine. With Gibbon's assistance, they fall in the best prose possible. I was going to insert a few of my favorite passages here, but there were about 6 volumes of them, so I desisted. ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Oct 20, 2014 Ross Cohen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Winston Churchill described reading "The Decline and Fall" best. He writes:

"I set out upon...Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [and] was immediately dominated both by the story and the style. ...I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all."

Having spent so much time with Gibbon, and having had so much fun along the way, I find it hard to accept the ride is over. Nevertheless, it is over – Rome has fallen, and it fell spectacularly. ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Jun 08, 2019 Jennifer (JC-S) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

‘Gibbon expressed the hope that his book would be read for two centuries.’

I first dipped into various volumes of this work in 1972, when I was studying Ancient History (Greek and Roman) at Launceston Matriculation College. I’d read it at the Launceston Library, initially as part of my search for different sources of information about the Roman Empire. No, I didn’t (then) read the entire six volumes. I didn’t have time. I was busy imagining my future, studying hard, wondering about possibilities. ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Sep 08, 2019 Debbie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, culture, zz2019, travel, social-commentary, zz2015, zz2018, politics, non-fiction, war

It did not take me as long to read this as it took Gibbon to write it but at times it felt like a backwards race for who will take longer. Part of the advantage of reading it is that I got it as an ebook from gutenberg.org. Part of the disadvantage is that it is an ebook that I owned so I could take as long as I needed. It also ran across the deadly experience of trying to read it on an app on a tablet instead of an ebook reader. During that phase, I rarely read as opening the tablet hurt my eye ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Jun 29, 2018 Gary Beauregard Bottomley rated it liked it · review of another edition

Was it 30 Emperors over sixty years that were covered in excruciatingly minute detail or was it 60 Emperors in thirty years? I don’t remember which it was but this book definitely did one or the other and later in the story the author will explain why he told the story in such excruciating detail. History should always be fun and the facts should never get in the way of good story telling, and sometimes it’s better to tell a story by leaving some of the details out or just wave ones hands around Was it 30 Emperors over sixty years that were covered in excruciatingly minute detail or was it 60 Emperors in thirty years? I don’t remember which it was but this book definitely did one or the other and later in the story the author will explain why he told the story in such excruciating detail. History should always be fun and the facts should never get in the way of good story telling, and sometimes it’s better to tell a story by leaving some of the details out or just wave ones hands around the details and explain the big picture instead of tell all of the details as Gibbon does with this book.

I’m surprised how fluently the writing holds up today except for some of the misogynistic, ethno-centric racist and anti-Semite statements which pop up throughout the story such as ‘one can always trust a Jew in matters of pecuniary matters’ or ‘leave it to a woman to be cutting towards another woman’. I’m not critical of those anachronisms because that’s part of the charm that one gets from reading a history book that not only explains the history that came before it but also gives insights into the era it was written in. The author does differentiate his approach to history by claiming to use a ‘philosophical approach’ to history telling. That is, considering an inquiry about the inquiry towards history itself.

This is really one of the best deals on audible. For one credit, one gets all 3910 pages of the book. There’s no way I would have been able to have actually read this book because it is incredibly flawed historically and has excessive details to the point of tedium and doesn’t always give a context for the history that is unfolding. At 2x listening speed the book has enough gems within it to make the tedium worthwhile. For example, when the author steps out of the chronological storytelling and tells you how the Christian religion was progressing and becoming a ‘universal’ religion and he would even relate it to the reformation of the 16th century the author was knocking it out of the park and actually ends up weaving one of the better Christian histories I’ve ever come across but not as part of the main narrative but mostly as a reflection of the author’s thoughts as he was synthesizing his major points.

I would recommend the middle volumes of Will Durant’s ‘Story of Civilization’ over this book overall if your objective is learn and be entertained especially if Audible combined them all into one volume for one credit like this book did. Durant did something clever. Durant made Dante his over arching main character in one of his volumes. Gibbons mentions Dante (1315 CE) barely and made Petrarch (1360 CE) a big focal point in wrapping up some of his points. Both (Dante and Petrarch) are usually considered the first humanist in addition to Plutarch (100 CE).

Durant weaved the history of the times with the philosophy and thought something Gibbon doesn’t do, and Gibbon also avoided giving dates so that often I would not know what century I was in (perhaps the written form of the book had dates in the margins?). An example of not weaving philosophical thought into the history: Gibbon does mention Augustine (400 CE) and Plotinus (250 CE) but only mentions them in connection with some Emperor you never heard of who Gibbon said spent too much time reading them and became irrelevant because of that, and I don’t think Gibbon mentioned St. Thomas Aquinas (1250 CE) at all or if he did it was only in passing. History needs more than just wars, Emperor’s names and names of countries or peoples long gone in order to understand the story and Gibbon often was a slave to the events. Gibbon did not even mention Pelagius in opposition to Augustine and what that means for today and the Protestant revolution, but I’m certain he would have mentioned the name of a bridge next to a river by a city that no longer exist in a battle that was fought and long forgotten. Who we are today and how the decline and fall of the Romans contributed to that are important stories and sometimes the real connections got lost in his exhaustively detailed story telling.

I would also recommend Paul H Freedman’s ‘The Early Middle Ages (281 -1000 CE)’. A course from Yale available from Itunes and covers most of the same material but more coherently than this book does. Also, I would recommend the Daileader’s lectures from the Great Courses. Those courses covered the same material overall as this book does but with more finesse.

Overall, this book is readable. It definitely dwells on details. It’s historically significant for its influence. It was in ‘The Great Book Series’ and probably belongs in it, but if your purpose is to be entertained and learn about Roman history since 150 CE there are better books or courses to choose from, but at one credit this book is one of the best deals you’ll ever come across in-spite of its faults.
...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Oct 01, 2016 James rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I want to tell you why I decided to read this original six-volume edition now.

The primary reason was that I had just finished revisiting Isaac Asimov's original Foundation trilogy early this year (I thought, at first, to finally get to the other volumes, which I read back when they first appeared, but that was decades ago), and it occurred to me that I had never really settled down with Gibbon for any extended length of time. Asimov's debt to Gibbon is much clearer to me now--he never made a sec I want to tell you why I decided to read this original six-volume edition now.

The primary reason was that I had just finished revisiting Isaac Asimov's original Foundation trilogy early this year (I thought, at first, to finally get to the other volumes, which I read back when they first appeared, but that was decades ago), and it occurred to me that I had never really settled down with Gibbon for any extended length of time. Asimov's debt to Gibbon is much clearer to me now--he never made a secret of it.

Also, I am now fifty years old (soon to be fifty-one), and there are still a lot of major works I haven't gotten to yet. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall seemed to me to be one of the most important.

And now, we live in the internet age, a time when I can pick up my (relatively small) Nook device, link it to the incredibly useful site gutenberg dot org, download the entire six volume edition for free, and carry it around to read. What's more, I discovered an unabridged audio recording on archive dot org, read by someone who clearly loved the language and structure of it, and so I downloaded that as well to help me through long stretches of the work. You can say what you want about electronic readers, but I will tell you that it is much easier to carry a tablet than a large book, or in this case, several volumes of a very large work.

I did get bogged down in the last thousand pages or so. Also, don't ask me detailed questions about Goth tribes or late emperors by name.

BUT the experience of reading most of this magisterial (if somewhat flawed) work is stupendous, and one I intend to do again very soon. If nothing else, Gibbon is the master of sentence structure. He writes so well about such momentous things that you feel the weight of history, the consequences of bad actions, or the lack of actions--the apathy of empire, the all too literal resting on its laurels. I was carried through most of this by a compulsion to hear these sentences in my head. I often revisited sections twice while I read, savoring Gibbon's intense desire to dig deeply into strange Christian rituals. (He had a very Age of Enlightenment disdain for religion.)

I *did not* read this because I thought that we are now living in the twilight of the American empire, even though the news every day here in 2016 would make any thinking person believe that. I also did not realize until I had done some more internet digging while reading that I am almost exactly the same age as Gibbon was when he finished The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In fact, the publication of the last three volumes was delayed so that they would coincide with his fifty-first birthday (see above).

The internet again: I will say that I did do several searches while reading. At the same time, I started the work diligently reading footnotes as they came up (which was something of a pain given that the electronic edition sometimes interspersed them within the text), but eventually I gave up on that because there are really quite a lot of them, and while most were somewhat helpful, some weren't, and I felt myself losing momentum. And I will again mention the audio version I found online, which also skipped the footnotes.

As someone who thinks a lot about writing and reading, I cannot recommend the experience of reading Gibbon highly enough. Yes, he was somewhat hampered by his many obsessions, which become quite obvious over the course of this work, but it is still so clearly monumental that to avoid it is to do yourself a disservice, especially if you are a native English speaker and reader. And I certainly intend to revisit it before I pass from this mortal coil. ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Goodreads Librari...: Split Volume Set	1	8	Sep 10, 2019 08:27AM
Goodreads Librari...: ISBN 978-1857150957	1	15	Sep 10, 2019 07:55AM
Goodreads Librari...: ISBN 978-1857151923	1	17	Sep 10, 2019 07:54AM
The Well-Educated...: Beginning History of Decline/Fall of Roman Emp	5	8	Feb 06, 2019 08:00AM

Readers also enjoyed

See similar books…

Genres

History

1,865 users

Nonfiction

511 users

Classics

310 users

History > Ancient History

102 users

Historical

71 users

Politics

43 users

Literature > Ancient

35 users

History > World History

34 users

Literature

29 users

Literature > 18th Century

28 users

See top shelves…

About Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon

381 followers

Edward Gibbon (8 May 1737 – 16 January 1794) was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. The Decline and Fall is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its open criticism of organised religion.

Gibbon returned to England Edward Gibbon (8 May 1737 – 16 January 1794) was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. The Decline and Fall is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its open criticism of organised religion.

Gibbon returned to England in June 1765. His father died in 1770, and after tending to the estate, which was by no means in good condition, there remained quite enough for Gibbon to settle fashionably in London at 7 Bentinck Street, independent of financial concerns. By February 1773, he was writing in earnest, but not without the occasional self-imposed distraction. He took to London society quite easily, and joined the better social clubs, including Dr. Johnson's Literary Club, and looked in from time to time on his friend Holroyd in Sussex. He succeeded Oliver Goldsmith at the Royal Academy as 'professor in ancient history' (honorary but prestigious). In late 1774, he was initiated a freemason of the Premier Grand Lodge of England. And, perhaps least productively in that same year, he was returned to the House of Commons for Liskeard, Cornwall through the intervention of his relative and patron, Edward Eliot. He became the archetypal back-bencher, benignly "mute" and "indifferent," his support of the Whig ministry invariably automatic. Gibbon's indolence in that position, perhaps fully intentional, subtracted little from the progress of his writing.

After several rewrites, with Gibbon "often tempted to throw away the labours of seven years," the first volume of what would become his life's major achievement, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published on 17 February 1776. Through 1777, the reading public eagerly consumed three editions for which Gibbon was rewarded handsomely: two-thirds of the profits amounting to approximately £1,000. Biographer Leslie Stephen wrote that thereafter, "His fame was as rapid as it has been lasting." And as regards this first volume, "Some warm praise from David Hume overpaid the labour of ten years."

Volumes II and III appeared on 1 March 1781, eventually rising "to a level with the previous volume in general esteem." Volume IV was finished in June 1784; the final two were completed during a second Lausanne sojourn (September 1783 to August 1787) where Gibbon reunited with his friend Deyverdun in leisurely comfort. By early 1787, he was "straining for the goal" and with great relief the project was finished in June. Gibbon later wrote:

It was on the day, or rather the night, of 27 June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. ... I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken my everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might be the future date of my history, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.

Volumes IV, V, and VI finally reached the press in May 1788, their publication having been delayed since March so it could coincide with a dinner party celebrating Gibbon's 51st birthday (the 8th). Mounting a bandwagon of praise for the later volumes were such contemporary luminaries as Adam Smith, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, Lord Camden, and Horace Walpole. Smith remarked that Gibbon's triumph had positioned him "at the very head of [Europe's] literary tribe." ...more

Books by Edward Gibbon

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume III

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Volumes 1-3

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume II

The Christians and the Fall of Rome (Great Ideas)

More…

News & Interviews

Check Out Speculative Fiction's Rising Stars

Kerine Wint is a software engineering graduate with more love for books than for computers. As an avid reader, writer, and fan of all things...

Trivia About The Decline and F...

4 trivia questions
1 quiz

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from The Decline and F...

“The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.” — 297 likes

“The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference in age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.” — 49 likes

More quotes…

See a Problem?

Preview — The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Edward Gibbon

Books by Edward Gibbon

News & Interviews

Trivia About The Decline and F...

Quotes from The Decline and F...

See a Problem?

Preview — The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Edward Gibbon

Books by Edward Gibbon

News & Interviews

Trivia About The Decline and F...

Quotes from The Decline and F...

new topic
Discuss This Book