Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Account of a Monumental Event, 28 Jul 2007
The "Fall of the Roman Empire" casts a huge shadow. A vast Empire, one of the "great civilisations" of history, went in barely a century from being the "sole superpower" to a mere plaything of barbarian tribes.
Why did it happen? All sorts of reasons can be offered, and Heather offers several, but what it comes down to is that this is simply what empires do - they rise, they exist for a time - years, decades or (as in Romes's case) centuries - and then they fall. Rome had already had a better "innings" than most, and in the fifth century its luck ran out.
It is usual to blame the Fall on the Empire's internal problems, and say that it became "decadent" or whatever. Heather, probably rightly, focuses more on what was happening outside Rome's borders. The Barbarian tribes, living for centuries with that 800 pound Roman "gorilla" next door, combined into larger units like the Frankish or Gothic kingdoms, which were a tougher proposition for Rome to cope with. Everlasting warfare with these states gradually wore the Empire down, and finally another barbarian, Attila, drove many tribes from their old homes and forced them to try their luck migrating into Roman territory. This proved more than Rome (or at least its western half) could cope with. So down the tubes it went.
No doubt, had Rome not fallen from this cause, it would eventually have fallen another way. Empires are usually longer lived than individuals, but are no more immortal. But Heather does a magnificent job of showing how and why it fell as and when it did.
One minor regret. Perhaps a little more "afterword" about post-Roman Europe might have been in order. For the significant thing about the Roman Empire is not that it fell (which was bound to happen sometime) but that it was never rebuilt. By contrast, China fell to Mongol "barbarians" in the 13C, an invasion probably as devastating as anything Western Rome underwent, yet within a century had gotten its breath back, expelled the invaders, and installed a native Ming Dynasty. Similarly, Egypt was able to spit out the Hyksos and other intruders. Yet Rome's former subjects not only didn't do this, but (unless the Arthurian legends count) seem never to have even tried. Rather, they appear to have largely shrugged their shoulders and made the best of things under barbarian rule. While purely external factors can explain the fall itself, they can't explain this apparent acceptance of it. Even when Roman lands were "liberated" by Justinian, the inhabitants seldom rallied round, and when Byzantium's grip loosened they just flopped back into barbarian hands. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, however traumatic the Empire's fall had been, a lot of its subjects soon found they didn't really miss it all that much. This calls for explanation.
Still, that's quibbling. Heather has written a great book (even if his 21C idioms can irritate at times) and it needs to be read by anyone interested in this subject.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I loved this, 4 Jul 2007
To start off with I thought his language was irritatingly contemporary. I hate it when historians talk about "spin doctors". I read history to escape from, not to be reminded of, Alistair Campbell and co. However, I soon got over this because the book was telling me just the sort of thing I really wanted to know.
Some books take the stories from the ancient sources, put them in order and iron out the discrepancies, but give very little elaboration. I'm particularly thinking of the book I was previously reading, Byzantium: The Early Centuries by J. J. Norwich. This is okay as far as it goes, in fact it's quite readable, but it can get a bit boring. All the repeated usurpations, murders and civil wars don't seem to have much significance, and there are so many questions unanswered, along the lines of, "but what was it actually like? And how did that work?"
Heather covers a much shorter time-span so he has much more room for analysis and explanation. And at the end I really felt I'd learnt a lot. Why, I was wondering, if Attila was a nomad does he have such beautiful clothes in the pictures in Osprey books? (Whenever I go camping I become filthy in a couple of weeks!) Heather gives a reasonable explanation of the the Huns' lifestyle. And if you want to know who the Goths were, I recommend this book. He reminded me of the most enthusiastic lecturers at university - the ones I actually made an effort to get up for, which is another reason why I ended up liking his informal style.
The maps could be brushed up a bit though. On map 13 the towns on the Moselle look a bit wrong to me. And the text refers to several places which aren't marked, so you can't follow the story easily. It helps to have an atlas handy.
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45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An exceptional book, 18 Aug 2006
I think some of the reviewers here are far too harsh in what they say about Heather. This is an immaculate study of the decline and fall of Rome. Heather's theories sit well within the prevailing historical consensus- he is illuminating on many of the themes that surround the fall- the rise of Barbarion tribes and the reasons for their rising and falling. He writes an analytical narrative- unlike some major popular histories he actually does analyse why things happened. The Fall of Rome can easily be reduced to battle after battle, imperial slaughter after slaughter but Heather gives you the reasons why one tribal confederacy won through, why imperial turnover was a constitutional feature of the empire. Perhaps most impressively, Heather thoroughly describes what he doesn't know as well as what he does- we don't have an internal account of the Hunnic Empire so can't know why Attilla headed west but can guess for example. Overall this is a wonderful study- full of analysis, full of narrative, which provides a coherent account of why the Empire fell and how it fell.
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