I remembered studying this episode as part of Latin O.L. I think it is regarded as a heavy read simply because it is physically heavy.

I've been told that it basically rotted from within and that's why it crumbled from without. ^ McMichael, Anthony (6 February 2017). ; Why Rome Fell: 476 CE, the date Gibbon used for the fall of Rome based on the … It had resisted it's enemies for hundreds of years. But the truth is that it remains incredibly readable. 1. As I said before, it takes Tacitus as its model, who … But there’s a reason this English classic has had more staying … pp. Even so, I realised why it was there. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (over 50 years ago). ; End of the Republic: Content related to the men and events from the Gracchi and Marius through the turbulent years between Julius Caesar's assassination and the start of the principate under Augustus. I was surprised when opening a book on the LATER Roman Empire to be confronted by an episode from Book V of Caesar's 'Gallic Wars' which took place in 54 B.C. Nearly all of them began with a refutation of the common reasons for Rome's fall and then went on to assert their own probable cause. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1776-1789) More casual readers might be dismayed to see The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire recommended so highly — the Penguin Classics edition, after all, runs to three volumes, weighing in at more than a thousand pages apiece. Fall of Rome Books: Recommended reading for a modern perspective on the reasons for the fall of Rome. The most accessible version is the Penguin one which comes in three large volumes. But every writer did this, so really they all disproved each other.

--Peter Brown, author ofThrough the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD "In this riveting history, Kyle Harper shows that disease and environmental conditions were not just instrumental in the final collapse of the Roman Empire but were serious problems for centuries before the fall. Next up is The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, which is considered a classic by many, but also somewhat of a heavy read. And I don't think a single one of them agreed with another. 141–159.

Harper's compelling and cautionary tale documents the … I don't know a lot about the Roman Empire, but I have "heard things" such as that the Roman Empire could have persisted much longer had it not crumbled from within. ISBN 9780190262952. The book collected essentially all of the leading historians of the topic and put all of their reasons for why Rome fell in one book.