The Fall of the West: The Death of the Roman Superpower, by Adrian Goldsworthy
The Ruin of the Roman Empire, by James O’Donnell
These two fat, well-sourced books about the decline of ancient Rome run, until they limp, in relay. Adrian Goldsworthy begins his leg from the end of the second century AD, the term of the Antonines (under whom Edward Gibbon could imagine himself happy, so long as he was a patrician), through the nervous three centuries which ended with the incursions — here seen more as forceful immigrations — of the Huns and the Goths.
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