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spitzig's review against another edition
4.0
Heavy. I've only read the first volume. There's enough in it, that I already expect to need to read it again to get an overview. I think I want to read the other three volumes first. Each is LONG, though.
lomedae's review against another edition
2.5
Totally outdated work, Gibson's conclusions have been discredited in modern academica. It was impressive for its day, and has had a tremendous influence on historians and the way we look at the Roman Empire. For better and for worse.
Do not read it, read contemporary books describing the current knowledge of the Roman Empire and its (slow) collapse/transformation.
Do not read it, read contemporary books describing the current knowledge of the Roman Empire and its (slow) collapse/transformation.
cmayes's review against another edition
4.0
My gosh this was a slog! Six books of 600+ pages each. It was definitely worth the effort, though. I must admit that the level of detail was daunting, but the patterns that such detail exhibited the rhyming history that Mark Twain remarked upon.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to comprehensively rate the series. My favorite aspects of the series are the comprehensive research against primary sources (I gave up trying to read the footnotes after about the second book) and the double-history perspective of a late-18th-century writer examining Roman and Byzantine history. This is an impressive feat of scholarship!
Another motivation for my reading the series was to fill the gaps of my understanding of this massive span of time. Naturally, the interminable list of emperors' names blended together after a while, but the sweep of the narrative will guide me when I next encounter these names, times, and places. The podcast Hardcore History had already done a pretty comprehensive job covering the Mongolian Empire, so it was satisfying to see that narrative mesh with Gibbon's description of the period. I expect this will happen many times over the course of my future reading.
If you're interested in the history of Western Civilization, I'd recommend putting in the effort to read the entire series. Although I found the level of detail to be tedious at times, I am glad that I persevered.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to comprehensively rate the series. My favorite aspects of the series are the comprehensive research against primary sources (I gave up trying to read the footnotes after about the second book) and the double-history perspective of a late-18th-century writer examining Roman and Byzantine history. This is an impressive feat of scholarship!
Another motivation for my reading the series was to fill the gaps of my understanding of this massive span of time. Naturally, the interminable list of emperors' names blended together after a while, but the sweep of the narrative will guide me when I next encounter these names, times, and places. The podcast Hardcore History had already done a pretty comprehensive job covering the Mongolian Empire, so it was satisfying to see that narrative mesh with Gibbon's description of the period. I expect this will happen many times over the course of my future reading.
If you're interested in the history of Western Civilization, I'd recommend putting in the effort to read the entire series. Although I found the level of detail to be tedious at times, I am glad that I persevered.
jillx27's review against another edition
5.0
Again and again my favourite books are about history so here we go again. It is a classic about the human condition, lust for power, grabbing at power and losing power. The grubby acts committed in the name of the great race of people on this planet. Gibbon looks at the military and political state reliant on disposable soldiers. A disgusting mess laid bare.
michael5000's review against another edition
5.0
It's pretty amazing -- elegant, and stupendously learned for just one guy. It seems oddly fresh and contemporary in some (although obviously not all) ways. There is, of course, rather an awful lot of it, but we shouldn't hold that against poor Gibbon.
jenmat1197's review against another edition
2.0
This book covers the Roman Empire from 98AD to 410 AD. It was 700 pages long. It covers the Age of the Antonines, The reign of Septimus Sevus, 30 different tyrants, The Persian war, the Authority of Constantine, The progress of the Christian religion, the foundation of Constantinople, Progress of the Huns from China to Europe, The Goths, the fall of the Western Empire, and everything in between. It has a nice introduction in the front from the editor about the history of the Author - who was born in 1737 and how he came to write this series of books (there are 6 volumes in all).
This book was BORING. Not that I am surprised. I knew I wasn't going to love it, but I wanted to read it because 50% of my family is of Italian heritage with great grandparents who came to the United States from Italy before I was born. We are traveling to Italy later this year, so I thought it would give me a little insight on the history of this beautiful country so when I saw the ruins, I would know a little of their history.
This book didn't help. Well, not much anyway. It just didn't hold my interest, and I found myself drifting often while I was reading it. Unless I had complete quiet and zero distractions, most of the page I was reading needed to be re-read. So many names, so many emperors. You just can't keep up. I did learn a few new things. 1) the apple originated in Italy and 2) I had no idea it wasn't always a Christian nation. Don't laugh.
I did find some of it interesting. Like the emperor that had 300 lovers - both men and women. The number of emperors that married their family members, or married off their sisters for money. Romans were crazy. Still are.
If you truly love ancient history, and love reading books that read like manuals, then this book is for you. If you are looking for an actual story, and not just stated facts, then skip it.
This book was BORING. Not that I am surprised. I knew I wasn't going to love it, but I wanted to read it because 50% of my family is of Italian heritage with great grandparents who came to the United States from Italy before I was born. We are traveling to Italy later this year, so I thought it would give me a little insight on the history of this beautiful country so when I saw the ruins, I would know a little of their history.
This book didn't help. Well, not much anyway. It just didn't hold my interest, and I found myself drifting often while I was reading it. Unless I had complete quiet and zero distractions, most of the page I was reading needed to be re-read. So many names, so many emperors. You just can't keep up. I did learn a few new things. 1) the apple originated in Italy and 2) I had no idea it wasn't always a Christian nation. Don't laugh.
I did find some of it interesting. Like the emperor that had 300 lovers - both men and women. The number of emperors that married their family members, or married off their sisters for money. Romans were crazy. Still are.
If you truly love ancient history, and love reading books that read like manuals, then this book is for you. If you are looking for an actual story, and not just stated facts, then skip it.
naiapard's review against another edition
4.0
"In the second century of the Christian Era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth and the most civilized portion of mankind."
I have to start by saying that my first intention towards this book was not to learn about the Roman Empire (for that, I have [b:SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome|28789711|SPQR A History of Ancient Rome|Mary Beard|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1470421195l/28789711._SY75_.jpg|44684882] by [a:Mary Beard|97783|Mary Beard|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1530842450p2/97783.jpg]), but to see what a man of the 18th C would want to see in the past of his ancestors.
After having read Adam Smith`s [b:The Wealth of Nations, Books 1-3|115596|The Wealth of Nations, Books 1-3|Adam Smith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1429470663l/115596._SY75_.jpg|19056941], a thought kept bugging me: I could not get over the way Smith described the things around him, his immediate surroundings and the affairs of the world. I mean, when he was writing his book there was no “United States of America”, yet, he named that part of the world as the Colonies –because USA hadn`t yet gained its independence. Not to even mention the fact that slavery was in its bloom and it did inadvertently influence his view over the way a economical system could be shaped and annexed in that society, of his time.
So, I picked Gibbon because I wanted to go deeper into the mind of a 18th C British guy.
(Yes, I am picking some peculiar ways to fill my spare time)
He wrote this book in the course of twenty years and it shows. There are plenty passages in which he simply derails from his main points and goes on into stories as if he is experiencing a fever dream on the page.
Regardless, it was still a quaint and pleasant (-ish) read.
From the entire book I think that three main thinks stuck with me:
I. One
of the first traits that I picked up was the continuing glorification of the Roman Empire. The way Gibbon stops to praise its merits at any given moment, makes one wonder where does the metaphorical reading stops and where does the literary one starts.
For example:
“The Roman name was revered among the most remote nations of the earth.” (p.8) Yeah, sure, I bet the Native Americans had a lot to say about it, at that time.
But, after stripping that glamorous language off the marrow of this text one remains with other questionable images.
II. For example, the way in which Gibbon chooses to word the slavery part in the Roman Empire. I know from Beard`s [b:SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome|28789711|SPQR A History of Ancient Rome|Mary Beard|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1470421195l/28789711._SY75_.jpg|44684882] that in those times one could buy himself out of slavery (if one had been bound to it in order to repay debt). However, Gibbon paints the imagery of slavery as a customary almost habituary state of affairs in the human society that has been presented FOREVER, especially in the times of “these glorious” Romans.
He touches this subject briefly, almost never by wants of explaining it, or trying to find some causes or consequences. The comparison between the Roman slavery and the one that was taking place in the American colonies, in his time, was never brought fourth, but its presence was blazing under the lines of his rhetoric in which it was more than obviously that he saw one and the other as one and the same.
This is a really long book.
I did not read it quick.
It took me months to arrive to the last parts.
III. In Gibbon`s vision the decline of the Empire was somehow owed to the christianization of the population, but he does not make it sounds as if that was something bad, more like an unavoidable fate. It is paradoxically, in a way. He praises this empire but at the same time when it comes to him making a choice between the empire and the Christendom he chooses the latter with absolute determination.
Overall, this is a particular read. It is not what someone picks casually to read on a late summer evening.
But, here are some quotes that can make this book look cooler:
“The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may entertain an active spirit with the consciousness and exercise of its own powers: but the possession of a throne could never yet afford a lasting satisfaction to an ambitious mind.”(p.110)
Or
“The progress of the ecclesiastical authority gave birth to the memorable distinction of the laity and of the clergy, which had been unknown to the Greeks and Romans.”(p.274)
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I have to start by saying that my first intention towards this book was not to learn about the Roman Empire (for that, I have [b:SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome|28789711|SPQR A History of Ancient Rome|Mary Beard|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1470421195l/28789711._SY75_.jpg|44684882] by [a:Mary Beard|97783|Mary Beard|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1530842450p2/97783.jpg]), but to see what a man of the 18th C would want to see in the past of his ancestors.
After having read Adam Smith`s [b:The Wealth of Nations, Books 1-3|115596|The Wealth of Nations, Books 1-3|Adam Smith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1429470663l/115596._SY75_.jpg|19056941], a thought kept bugging me: I could not get over the way Smith described the things around him, his immediate surroundings and the affairs of the world. I mean, when he was writing his book there was no “United States of America”, yet, he named that part of the world as the Colonies –because USA hadn`t yet gained its independence. Not to even mention the fact that slavery was in its bloom and it did inadvertently influence his view over the way a economical system could be shaped and annexed in that society, of his time.
So, I picked Gibbon because I wanted to go deeper into the mind of a 18th C British guy.
(Yes, I am picking some peculiar ways to fill my spare time)
He wrote this book in the course of twenty years and it shows. There are plenty passages in which he simply derails from his main points and goes on into stories as if he is experiencing a fever dream on the page.
Regardless, it was still a quaint and pleasant (-ish) read.
From the entire book I think that three main thinks stuck with me:
I. One
of the first traits that I picked up was the continuing glorification of the Roman Empire. The way Gibbon stops to praise its merits at any given moment, makes one wonder where does the metaphorical reading stops and where does the literary one starts.
For example:
But, after stripping that glamorous language off the marrow of this text one remains with other questionable images.
II. For example, the way in which Gibbon chooses to word the slavery part in the Roman Empire. I know from Beard`s [b:SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome|28789711|SPQR A History of Ancient Rome|Mary Beard|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1470421195l/28789711._SY75_.jpg|44684882] that in those times one could buy himself out of slavery (if one had been bound to it in order to repay debt). However, Gibbon paints the imagery of slavery as a customary almost habituary state of affairs in the human society that has been presented FOREVER, especially in the times of “these glorious” Romans.
He touches this subject briefly, almost never by wants of explaining it, or trying to find some causes or consequences. The comparison between the Roman slavery and the one that was taking place in the American colonies, in his time, was never brought fourth, but its presence was blazing under the lines of his rhetoric in which it was more than obviously that he saw one and the other as one and the same.
This is a really long book.
I did not read it quick.
It took me months to arrive to the last parts.
III. In Gibbon`s vision the decline of the Empire was somehow owed to the christianization of the population, but he does not make it sounds as if that was something bad, more like an unavoidable fate. It is paradoxically, in a way. He praises this empire but at the same time when it comes to him making a choice between the empire and the Christendom he chooses the latter with absolute determination.
Overall, this is a particular read. It is not what someone picks casually to read on a late summer evening.
But, here are some quotes that can make this book look cooler:
Or
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