Is it still worth reading Gibbon "Decline and Fall"

or is it outdated now?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Roman_army#Constantine
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Cyprian
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_emperors
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

It's best used to understand the way in which he shapes the historical weltanschauung of the 1800s.

Read it not to actually learn, but to get a feel for the paradigm.

And yes, contrarian jerkoffs, I am using those words correctly.

Only Christian apologists/revisionists dislike Gibbon and his near totally credible work "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". There's literally not a single argument I've seen them use besides "muh snowniggers". Granted that Germanic barbarians had a role to play in Romes fall, the underlying cause was still Christianity.

Do you still wear pantaloons and tricorns, too?

check out hobbes leviathan instead

>weltanschauung

wtf i dont speak french asshole

Obviously. I'm not a faggot.

this

Gibbon was an idiot, Stop shilling for him

Gibbon is no means an idiot, "Decline and Fall" was one of the most groundbreaking works of history at the time, he pretty ushered in modern history, yes the work is outdated now, but that's because of the nature of how history develops as sources get more accurate


would you say Isaac Newton an idiot since he doesn't have the knowledge of modern physics?

We Carolingian now.

Can anyone actually explain to me the major ways he was wrong?

I know some people suggest his blame of Christianity is overstated - is that all? If you account for that, what else would you need to watch out for?

Lead pipes and xenopohobia

Gibbon's central thesis can be (somewhat reductionistly) summed up as

>Well, if you look at the absolute levels of numbers, wealth, organization, etc. that the Germanic invaders that ultimately did in the Roman empire possessed, they were way weaker in absolute terms than other peoples the Romans crushed earlier in their history, like the Carthaginians or the Selucids.
>Ergo, the Rome of the 4th-5th centuries was a weaker polity than the late Republic or the Early Empire
>Ergo, moral decline is the cause of the fall of the Roman empire, a failure of the civic virtues that made Rome great.

He doesn't even primarily blame Christianity. Gibbon has a huge hateboner for Septemius Severus, who introduced an "Oriental style despotism" and crushed the last vestiges of republican sentiment, and he gets the #1 blame award in Gibbon's work.

Anyway, it's mostly a matter of him primarily proving his central thesis by pointing to correlation and absences: I almost hate to make the comparison, but he's a lot like a /pol/ack shouting "DEGENERACY!", but admittedly far more informed.

Mostly, you just go by undercutting his assumptions. You could point to Machiavelli's centuries earlier analysis as to why the Republic collapsed and how the creation of a professional standing army without meaningful oversight over it is just begging for civil war and other assorted trouble as this army throws its weight around, and that most of the Empire was an attempt to juggle power between various Legion commanders, with a theory that is simultaneously simpler and more broadly applicable.

why do many historians still consider Gibbon a groundbreaking pioneer then?

>You could point to Machiavelli's...the creation of a professional standing army

Constantine(the christian)reorganized the field army to be under his direct command,stripping the frontiers of its legions to make one single army

Primarily, because he used primary sources over secondary ones, which was actually groundbreaking for the era. Going back to the original documentation, if you could find it, and trying to lay it out in a coherent whole, especially for something as broad of scope as he was trying, was a daunting task, and he did set a new standard in that department.

He took troops away from governorial command, but he still had divisions in command between the mobile and garrison armies, and he wasn't personally in command of every legion. You also had his earlier "rule" with the tetrarchy, and squishing the revolt by Licinius; his rule was hardly absolute.

>Nevertheless, the majority of his comitatus was drawn from existing frontier units.[66] This drawdown of large numbers of the best units inevitably increased the risk of successful large-scale barbarian breaches of the frontier defences

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Roman_army#Constantine

I would argue that in an attempt to centralize military power(to stop civil wars), Constantine enabled/encouraged the barbarian tribes to move into roman territory,thus destroying the western empire

>the underlying cause was still Christianity
99.9% of historians disagree with you and with Gibbon. "Decline and Fall" is good until the anti-Christian shit.

>breakdown in slave system
>cascading effect leading ultimately to urban depopulation and rise of serfdom
>death of trade
>increased regionalism
>lack of tax revenue/centralized system/empire too expensive to maintain

You can see this same process in any old American city, Detroit for example. Economic factors lead to decline in industry, leading to depopulation and declining property values and tax revenues. The city struggles to pay basic services without previous tax base, cannot continue past expenditures. This is exactly what happened with the centralized Roman army and administration. It was an entirely economic issue, not magic based upon ethics or lack thereof

>or is it outdated now?

Very, and so is the first two generations of reactions to it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Cyprian

That had a lot more to with the fall of the Roman Empire then anything Gibbon touched on. Namely the long term effect of it, because it did not kill people evenly.

Yeah its still worth reading just keep in mind that some new evidence has come to light since then (obviously) so not everything is 100℅ accurate. Its a great place to start learning about Rome though. Love Gibbons style

Stay triggered Christcuck. The cultural inflexibility of christfaggotry obviously didnt mesh with new members of the empire as well as "yeah worship whoever yoy want as long as you also agree the emperor is divine"
If you deny this youre just bullshitting me

>The people with doctorates disagree with me so I'll just keep spewing bullshit
By the time the Empire fell, no one was even worshiping the emperors. Not that that was even fucking relevant to Rome's well-being.

>you also agree the emperor is divine

Starting with Commodus most emperors were Murdered. That evened out starting with Diocletian. Just look at this

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_emperors

They had very short reigns. How could anyone of the era call them divine?

It is, but only if you have an edition which has his hilarious "footnotes". You have to disregard his overall objective however in attempting to portray the empire as a diseased and decayed beast bereft of any virtuous men and ruined by Christianity. As an actual narrative history it's great, the guy really knows his shit. Some of the sources he relied on were straight up forgeries though so keep that in mind e.g. Ossian.

Yes its fine. But ONLY if you understand Gibbons is good for only historiography and not actual history.

it just means worldview