The idea that the Roman Empire experienced a violent, dramatic fall isn’t new to me. I’ve gone through classes where my professors have stressed this point. Ward-Perkins’ viewpoint, however, was unique and almost read as a story rather than real history. I enjoyed reading it, and it was really nice to get a little more insight into the topic, especially after reading Edward Gibbon’s “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” ( )

maintains that fall of Western empire led to real declines in culture and material comfort, not assimilation of different cultures

A few decades after the fall of Rome, barbarian kings treasured objects that a few years before peasants discarded. It blew my mind. ( )

A brief (I read it in one sitting) but thorough book making the focused point that the end of the Western Roman Empire was, in fact, violent and calamitous, a once-orthodox position now increasingly challenged by a view emphasizing the peaceful and negotiated transition from Roman to Germanic rule and settlement. Ward-Perkins makes a compelling argument for the narrow version of his thesis, and he's careful to note instances where the end of Rome was less violent or calamitous than others. In particular, his arguments about economic history — the collapse of post-Roman economies to, in some cases, more simple and impoverished versions than even pre-Roman civilizations — are compelling. His arguments for the violence of the fall of Rome are more rooted in interpretations of a scanty literary record, though from my own biases it's also an easier anecdotal case to make that bands of armed men moving into a new territory, even when officially welcomed, might have been violent and disruptive. ( )

è davvero un buon libro per molte ragioni, alcune delle quali forse non farebbero contento l'autore.
Intanto è un libro che mostra anche ai non specialisti che l'"oggettività" storica non esiste (diciamo che è un falso problema che interessa solo chi vuole parlare male degli storici) e che il risultato parziale delle nostre conoscenze sul passato è sempre il frutto di una dialettca in continuo movimento.
E' un libro sincero (l'autore dichiara sempre le sue parzialità)che offre un quadro di sintesi molto utile e di gradevolissima lettura sulle nostre conoscenze del periodo in questione e sui punti controversi delle differenti interpretazioni.
Ma il pregio maggiore - a mio avviso - è che, in realtà, la lettura ci stimola a riflettere sul nostro presente: quale migliore risultato per un libro di storia? ( )