Earlier in the history

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Earlier in the history of this site, I used to periodically recommend books — usually works of popular history. So here’s another: The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians by Peter Heather. I’m only about half way through it. But I’ve read more than enough to recommend it.

This topic is a perennial. But it’s also one that is almost hopelessly encrusted with myth and overworn interpretations which make the period very hard to get a hold of or approach in any fresh way. Heather’s book is crisply and engagingly written. And it’s quite accessible even for someone with no background or knowledge of the period. He manages to bring together both the high history of emperors and battles with the longer-term changes in the societies and economies of the German and other ‘barbarian’ peoples from central and eastern Europe who dismantled the western Empire in the 5th century.

If you’re the sort who likes finding a thick book about some distant period in the past that you can lose yourself in for a spell, try this one out.

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