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Old 09-10-2009, 12:47 PM   #16
corroonb
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ahi View Post
Really?

I thought I read somewhere that he was the first historian to actually go back to original sources, and that as a result his work is the next best thing (to original sources--in contrast with earlier histories where people are reporting on people reporting what other people reported that yet other people said/did/saw).

Having said that, his opinionatedness does not surprise me... but is it really so bad as to negate the (supposed) value of the underlying research?

- Ahi
He was an exceptional historian for his time but Classicists no longer read him for his history (at least in my experience). Archaeology was still very primitive in Gibbon's day so he used mainly textual sources, although to be fair to him he did visit battle-fields and the like.

He is especially poor on the Byzantine Empire. John Julius Norwich has a three volume work on that subject if you want a better account of the 'Eastern' Roman Empire.

His main theory that Christianity was a prime factor in the collapse of the Empire is generally disputed today.

The Roman Empire by Colin Wells and The Later Roman Empire by Averil Cameron are good 'beginner' modern histories of some of the period covered by Gibbon.
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