The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol. 1

Description

This massive volume about the history of the Roman Empire is the first out of the six volumes that make up Gibbon’s masterpiece. The six-volume work is an extraordinary, detailed and ground-breaking account of the final period before the inevitable disintegration of the Empire, from the peak of the Roman rule in around 98 B.C. to the complete falling-apart of Byzantium in the 16th century.

The book is by no means easy to read. Being an extensively researched scholarly work, it should be read at a slow pace, taking in only small portions at a time. The educational value of the book lies not only in the information and in the accounts of events and relationships presented – you will actually learn vocabulary, too, Gibbon being well-known for his rich and beautiful style of writing as well. In terms of the information offered by Gibbon, many advise readers who are not familiar with the chronology of the period or with the names of political figures of the era to use a more simple history of the period as help to be able to concentrate on the complexities presented by Gibbon. One of the features that make Gibbon’s work stand out is the use of primary sources and the inclusion of a detailed and accurate index section – a method that has been used a research model for historians even today.

The first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was first published in 1776, but the author continued to make changes to the original material of all the six volumes for a long time after they came out, therefore the volumes are available in several different versions, depending on the year of publication. Some of the more recent complete editions include Gibbon’s own response to the criticism aimed against his work because of the negative depictions of early Christianity, and you can also find abridged versions of the huge work that condense Gibbon’s more extensive versions into one or three volumes.
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