Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Despite being an immediate bestseller, shortly after publishing, Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire became unpopular with large groups of the British reading public. The abridged edition consecutively presents the stories behind the Empire’s leadership and course of action. Gibbon revivifies the complex and compelling period of the Romans by detailing the prosperous conditions of the empire, the decline, and the aftermath of the fall. At the same time, Gibbon efficiently scrutinizes the declining virtue of the Roman people. Gibbon made an argument that the intellectual inflexibility of the Roman Empire had declined into “barbarism” and “Christianity,” which ultimately attributed to the fall of the Empire. Many ideas in international politics may have the best foundations for evidence but quickly go out of style. The ideas behind Gibbon’s Decline did just that. Many authors attribute the decline of the Roman Empire to military and economic characteristics rather than virtuous leadership and characteristics. Because Gibbon takes a humanist approach in describing decline, he undermines legitimate factors that modern political scientists would evaluate. Gibbon wrote in a paradigm that has little value for modern political science and as such, is a really bad idea. His idea- the decline of the Roman virtue having consequences beyond structural factors- is, in effect, an idea that should not be used for anything except teaching the definition of virtue and reviewing history. Because of the paradigm going out of style, The Decline would not have survived with merit had it not been for the intriguing anecdotes and tales of the many characters.

The need to investigate all political, social, military and...

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..., Julian, and Chapter 1 on the military, there is not enough evidence that focuses on aspects other than virtue that could have led to the fall of the empire. Focusing on religion and barbarism in a book on state power does not answer the question of why a state would be destroyed; it just plays on what it means to have freedom and rights. Modern day political scientists analyze all policies and changes to government, not just leadership and virtue. In order to accurately depict the reasoning for the fall of Rome, Gibbon would have had to talk more about other structural factors, as personal value is not the only contributor.

Works Cited

Biddle, Stephen. Military Power (Princeton University Press, 2004).

Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Abridged Edition, edited and abridged by David Womersley (Penguin Classics, 2005).