The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather

one can recommend to anyone, whether specialist or interested amateur. succeeds triumphantly.' Sunday Times 'a fascinating story, full of ups and downs and memorable characters' Spectator 'bursting with action. an account full of keen wit and an infectious relish for the period.' Independent On Sunday 'provides the reader with drama and lurid colour as well as analysis. He has so far been debunking some of the commonly mentioned reasons behind the collapse of the empire for example economic decline, loss of civic value, the rise of Christianity. He examines the extraordinary success story that was the Roman Empire and uses a new understanding of its continued strength and enduring limitations to show how Europe's barbarians, transformed by centuries of contact with Rome, eventually pulled it apart. I am halfway through reading Peter Heathers 'The Fall of the Roman Empire' and I have to say I am pretty impressed. Mixing authoratative analysis with thrilling narrative, he brings fresh insight into the panorama of the empire's end, from the bejewelled splendour of the imperial court to the dripping forests of 'Barbaricum'. What had gone wrong? In this ground breaking book, Peter Heather proproses a stunning new solution to one of the greatest mysteries of history. Within a hundred years the last Emperor of the Western Empire had been deposed. And yet, August that year saw a small group of German-speaking asylum-seekers rout a vast Imperial army at Hadrianople, killing the Emperor and establishing themselves on Roman territory. Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians 6 likes Like An emphasis on reading individual texts with a view to understanding the ideological visions of the world that underlie them has also had a dramatic impact. In AD 378 the Roman Empire had been the unrivalled superpower of Europe for well over four hundred years.

The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather