everyman's library decline and fall of the roman empire

Next to his learning, there’s his style, whose later devotees include both Winston Churchill, ( No 43 in this series), and Evelyn Waugh. Gibbon alludes to passages in Strabo, Sallust, Seneca, Macrobius and Longinus, among many others. It was commonplace in Augustan England of the 18th century to refer to Virgil, Ovid, or Plutarch. Gibbon may have been an amateur historian (his life was otherwise devoted to nurturing his family’s considerable wealth, and to serving in the militia), but his erudition is staggering. In so doing, Gibbon traces the intimate and profound connection of the ancient world to his own, more modern time, linking more or less explicitly the age of the Enlightenment to the age of Rome. The six volumes (published between 17) fall into three parts: from the age of Trajan to “the subversion of the western empire” in 395 AD from the reign of Justinian in the east to the second, Germanic empire, under Charlemagne, in the west and from the revival of this western empire to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. An object of awe, Gibbon’s history unfolds its narrative from the height of the Roman empire to the fall of Byzantium. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.Edward Gibbon almost certainly contrived this fanciful recollection, but the scholarship that went into his Decline and Fall still stands, like a timeless Roman ruin: majestic, elegant and even sublime. Easily the most celebrated historical work in English, Gibbon's account of the Roman empire was in its time a landmark in classical and historical scholarship and remains a remarkable fresh and powerful contribution to the interpretation of Roman history more than two hundred years after its first appearance. Furthermore, both argument and style embody the Enlightenment values of rationality, lucidity and order to which Gibbon so passionately subscribed and to which his HISTORY is such a magnificent monument. Its fame, however, rests more on the exceptional clarity, scope and force of its argument, and the brilliance of its style, which is still a delight to read.

Everyman's library decline and fall of the roman empire