The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization | 
 enlarge | Author: Bryan Ward-perkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 65749
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0192807285
Dewey Decimal Number: 945.6301
EAN: 9780192807281
ASIN: 0192807285
Publication Date: September 7, 2006
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Product Description
Was the fall of Rome a great catastrophe that cast the West into darkness for centuries to come? Or, as scholars argue today, was there no crisis at all, but simply a peaceful blending of barbarians into Roman culture, an essentially positive transformation?
In The Fall of Rome, eminent historian Bryan Ward-Perkins argues that the "peaceful" theory of Rome's "transformation" is badly in error. Indeed, he sees the fall of Rome as a time of horror and dislocation that destroyed a great civilization, throwing the inhabitants of the West back to a standard of living typical of prehistoric times. Attacking contemporary theories with relish and making use of modern archaeological evidence, he looks at both the wider explanations for the disintegration of the Roman world and also the consequences for the lives of everyday Romans, who were caught in a world of marauding barbarians, and economic collapse. The book recaptures the drama and violence of the last days of the Roman world, and reminds us of the very real terrors of barbarian occupation. Equally important, Ward-Perkins contends that a key problem with the new way of looking at the end of the ancient world is that all difficulty and awkwardness is smoothed out into a steady and positive transformation of society. Nothing ever goes badly wrong in this vision of the past. The evidence shows otherwise.
Up-to-date and brilliantly written, combining a lively narrative with the latest research and thirty illustrations, this superb volume reclaims the drama, the violence, and the tragedy of the fall of Rome.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 The End of Civilization... August 24, 2008
Like it or not, the Post-Roman World is called the Dark Ages for a reason. And Bryan Ward-Perkins makes sure we know why. Trade collapsed, travel decreased and the standard of living, for both the rich and the poor, went down the toilet. Well, the toilets that still worked.
Waves of barbarians, over the centuries, came to share the wealth and comfort of the Roman Empire. And they, in the end, destroyed it. There are many reasons for this, which are examined, but this book isn't about why it fell but HOW it fell. It didn't change or absorb new cultures. It fell to invasion. People died, governments fell about, and only a few places survived with anything we would call a standard of living.
The book is great, tracing the changes of life as it changed from the Pre-Roman World to the Roman World and, then, into the Post-Roman World. Pots, taxes, and cattle are just some of the subjects the book deals with. A must for ANY library!
 Narrow viewed and Biased August 19, 2008
Any book I read is bound to increase my knowledge of any given subject. This book was no exception. However, I had to glean that knowledge from amidst much other useless information.
To begin with, while the author is correct in saying the barbarians were responsible for the fall of Rome, it is also an understatement. To ignore or gloss over any other reasons or causes is to betray credibility and scholarly intent, not to mention having a hint of biased agenda, which should have no part of a historian's duty to portray events as accurately as possible. That being said certain things should not be included (and included) in a work of history. This book is laced with the opinions of the author, beginning on pg. 3 with "I have never much liked the ancient Romans-- to me they too often seem self-important and self-satisfied--and I have much more sympathy for the chaotic and difficult world of post-Roman times." It is absolutely absurd to label all the people from a 1,000 year civilization as self-important and self-satisfied. Would a historian 2,000 years in the future be correct in saying that all Americans are haughty and condescending? Ridiculous!
I would have liked to have seen him write more about the negative effect of the rise of Christianity and the role it played on the decline and fall of Rome. Failing to mention any role the Christians had is to betray history. Instead he mentions some miracles performed by Christian holy men in staving off barbarian invasions. That is another instance of how he has gone wrong as a historian. Here he ceases being a true historian and becomes a historian with a favoritism toward a certain group. He becomes the "victorius historian writing his history." I wouldn't expect him to write much of it due to his apparent favoritism towards the religion. Christianity had just as much to do with the decline of Rome as barbarian incursions. Impossible, Ridiculous you may say! Nobody hears about such things, right? That is because "history is written by the victors." Delve deeper into more serious historical works, both modern and contemporary Roman, instead of receiving only the half-truths that are recounted by this author. It is well known in the historical record that once Christianity became the official state religion, temples, schools, and libraries were destroyed or ceased functioning. Lawless bands of monks wandered the countryside pillaging and destroying as the went, theological debates sparked endless riots in the empire's main cities. Laws were passed forcing peaceable citizens on pain of death to convert to Christianity. The Christian emperors adopted a policy of endless appeasement to various sects of Christianity, which would eventually manifest itself in the West as the total control of the papacy over secular rulers after the fall of Rome. Rome, as a technical civilization, was built on learning. How else could roads, aqueducts, arenas, ships, warfare tactics, law, and all the other sciences have been conducted without learning. After Christianity became the only religion, it was common to see bonfires in all city squares throughout the empire, being fed by the books and papyrii that contained the accumulated knowledge of over a thousand years, upon which the empire was built. All learning and knowledge that had nothing to do at all with Christianity went up in flames. With all that said alone, how can any civilization hope to survive? The author mentions none of this. He tells you about the barbarians. Add the barbarians into the mix of all what I just noted above and then we can see why Rome really fell.
The old saying that "history is written by the victors" is what I would expect of those who are biased.
Fascinating & compelling reading June 18, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
One might suspect a story of pottery shards to be a bit dry, but this is absolutley not the case. Bryan Ward-Perkins weaves a compelling "detective
mystery" which shows why the Roman Empire fell, and at what cost to future civilizations.
And this is not the stuff for eggheads or histor-o-ophiles. As the tale unravels we learn that what happened to Rome is EXACTLY what is happening to the United States today - illegal aliens ignoring the legal niceties and simply moving in and setting up their own little fiefdoms. Going to Rome to find "jobs", including enlisting in the army, without becoming Roman and in the end dilluting the "brand" so much that people stopped caring. Rome wasn't "killed", it simply died from neglect. As a result mankind lost centuries of technical advances made by Rome that weren't recovered until after the end of the European Dark Ages.
Any of this seem familiar? All our political leaders ought to be MADE to read this book!
Bryan probably won't get credit for having written a book that offers clues to saving modern civilization from a second catastrophe, but he surely has.
Fantastic book - should be read by Mayanists and others June 1, 2008
This is an excellent book, very convincing to a non-Romanist archaeologist. Its a fascinating read. Ward-Perkins debunks the surprisingly popular revisionist claim that Roman civilization did not really collapse. A similar revisionism is creeping into Maya studies, which is quite amazing given that the extent of collapse was much greater among the Maya than it was for Rome. If the southern lowland Maya didn't collapse, what do we call the abandonment of all of their cities, the loss of much of their elite culture, and the disappearance of most of the population? Oh, it's just a transformation, the revisionists say.
Maybe I should try for some publicity by taking a revisionist view of the Aztecs (my specialty). They weren't really conquered, Cortes and his cronies were really nice guys, Aztec culture was not really destroyed by the invaders, their cities weren't really burned and the temples torn down, millions of people didn't really die. It was just a transformation to a new Spanish colonial world.
Mayanists should read "The Fall of Rome," as should anyone else interested in ancient civilizations. A fantastic book!
not quite March 28, 2008
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
Mr. Perkins is a arqueologist who writes a book on history (for those who d'ont know history studies documents and archaeology studies objects). The result is not convincing: the work is not properly suported by document research and the archaeology part seams to be resumed to pottery finding.
The author contradicts Himself often. At one point he says that the empire was still quite strong on the V century, only to further on saying that lack of money resulted on a diminished and weakened army. Another example: the author compares the roman economy to the west's XX century one; but then he goes on to compare it with the soviet one - the second is defendable; the first is absurd.
Mr. Perkins has a soft spot for the romans wich I share with him. But that doesn't stop me from recognising their weaknesses: it was extremely centralised, the government being responsable for most economic activity wich resulted on a lack of enterprise (remember that a large part of the population was enslaved and that roman citizens did not look well on business entrepreneurship). all this resulted on lack of flexibility to meet the financial crisis of the III and V centuries.
Rome did us the favour of falling at the right moment. And it was the political fragmentation that followed that created the basis for the competition that made europe great.
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