The Fall of the Roman Empire

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History
Peter Heather

While loving Gibbon this side idolatry, I will concede that some of the conclusions he reaches about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire are not fully supported by the latest scholarship and archeological evidence (though on the whole I think he has aged rather well). In this lively and thoroughly up-to-date narrative account of the collapse of the western Roman Empire Peter Heather sees a coherent process of imperial disintegration consistently, if sometimes only indirectly, related to the sudden rise and even faster decline of the Huns. Perhaps not an entirely “new” account – still the triumph of barbarism, this time without the aid of religion – but an excellent synthesis that provides quite a bit of fresh insight.