Unveiling the End of an Empire: Examining the Impact of Climate and Disease on the Fate of Rome

Farouk M.: pleased

United States on Jun 29, 2023

Kindle Customer: This book puts into perspective the current "man made" global warming belief. Global warming started, not with man but, at the end of the last ice age. Its trajectory is not linear. Like a stock market it has its bull and bear markets but the overall trend will not be overthrown by human tinkering with co2 levels. CO2 levels on earth have, in the past, been much higher. The overall trend is at the mercy of our sun and its cycles only to be interrupted briefly by our earths trajectory around our sun and the earths tilt and wobbles. The Romans ingenuity in government and engineering was met with the RCO and placement of there empire around the Mediterranean and the lack of these attributes in the surrounding areas. Take away the climate and add the pandemics that seem to always follow climate and the chain reaction of a great fall starts.

United States on Jun 02, 2023

Lockers: Tihs is a really interesting book, but is dense and needs time and concentration. Anybody with an interest in the development of Europe should read it.

United Kingdom on Nov 23, 2022

Bertrand: Informative with new perspectives. Similar approach than Jared Diamond.

France on Oct 20, 2022

feldina: Libro in lingua inglese, molto interessante e scritto in maniera fluida che rende la lettura estremamente piacevole. Per ora ho letto solo una 70ina di pagine e mi sento di consigliarlo. Consegna perfetta come al solito e preso anche a un prezzo po scontato. Ottimo acquisto

Italy on Oct 11, 2022

Ms M.: What the world needs now is, more (like Kyle Harper), historians that can engage people in what preceeded their short stay on earth. . Not more climate change experts. We have so much to learn from histories like this. Thank you Kyle Harper. Prompted to write this late review, we purchased the Fate of Rome, as an audio book and paperback, last year was the email announcing his new book & am very much looking forward to that.

United Kingdom on Oct 05, 2021

Amazon Customer: Me parece un muy buen libro de historia. Si bien tiene como inspiración la idea de la obra de Gibbons, vá muchísimo más allá y valdría complementarlo con los trabajos de Mary Beard. Tiene algunas imprecisiones sobre la historia de China, específicamente del período de los Tres Reinos y la dinastía Jin que usa como contraste de la realidad del Mediterráneo. Pero aún así considero que es un excelente análisis de la antiguedad tardía y como las variables del clima, interconexión mercantil (economías mundo en otros términos) epidemias, resiliencia societal se combinaron en el devenir de la "caída" y decadencia del imperio romano. Asimismo metodologicamente es una muy buena obra ya que hace un balance equilibrado de múltiples fuentes (astronómicas, geológicas, climatológicas, arqueológicas, históricas y económicas) para tejer una tela narratia muy estimulante para pensar el período en otras latitudes. Según otras reseñas parece que es una obra bastante especializada y quizá no tan narrativa, pero bueno esa es la opinión del gusto por las narrativas históricas más que en historiografía. Vale mucho la pena comprarlo

Mexico on May 09, 2019

Bayard B.: Excellent book. I would give it 5 Stars for the level of scholarship and the overall interesting subject matter (at least for me).

One idea or theme that comes across is that the Roman Empire did not just disappear or collapse overnight one day in 410 CE (or AD, as you will) when Rome was sacked by the Goths or in 476 when the last emperor Romulus Augustus was deposed and never replaced or superseded. It gradually collapsed as a political and economic entity between around 400 and 600. For most people, there were probably really no great changes in their lives during that period. Perhaps for the ruling or economic elite (the Roman equivalent of the 1%), things might have been significantly and noticeably worse. Even the symbols of the decaying Empire and Republic still existed until quite late. I have read elsewhere that the last recorded meeting of the old republican Senate occurred in 605, even though the Senate had long ceased to have any real political power. By 600 in general, though, the territories of the old Empire were noticeably less populous and less wealthy than they had been in, say, 150.

Another major theme of the book is that the Roman Empire didn’t...

United States on Apr 14, 2018

Daniel Weitz: This book is certain to stir controversy among those who love classical history. You will want this on your sh The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150-750 (Library of World Civilization) elves along with the works of Peter Heather The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians , Peter Brown and my favorite, Ward-Perkins The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization . He unfortunately is not that familiar with the works of Raoul McLaughlin The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean: The Ancient World Economy and the Kingdoms of Africa, Arabia and India . Harper has a wonderful description of the ‘economic efflorescence’ of the ‘Roman Climate Optimum’.
This work is concerned with climate change and what the author feels are its positive (yes, climate change can be positive) and negative effects in the Late Holocene. The author identifies 6 causes of climate change: 1) Variations in the tilt of the earth’s axis - 41,000 year cycle. 2) Precession (wobbly spin) of the axis- 26,000 year cycle. 3) Slight variable eccentricity in the earth’s orbit 4) Volcanism 5) Significant variations in the earth’s orbit around the sun, and 6) Anthropogenic change; the...

United States on Nov 25, 2017