Quote:
Originally Posted by shousa
Really there was no "empire" when Constantinople fell as this link shows but I do understand your point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Byzantium1430.JPG
Your views that his book is incorrect are strong. Is that the Christian view only?
Is it really a waste of time to read? (after I just bought it...) Anyone like to contribute their thoughts?
How about a poll? |
Regarding Constantinopole, of course there was no empire remaining in 1453 and to a large extent the name of Byzantine or Roman (as they called themselves)
Empire was misleading after Heraclius was defeated by the surging Muslim armies just when his brilliant victory in the decades war against the Persian Empire seemed to have ensured the supremacy of the (Eastern) Roman Empire - historical circumstance meant that the surging Arab armies walked over both Persia and the Eastern Roman Empire in the 630's and only the strong walls of Constantinopole and its powerful fleet stopped them.
There are many books about Byzantium that correct Gibbon's misleading description; JJ Norwich has a trilogy (summarized also in one volume) that I found best for popular reading being quite accurate historically too.
Regarding Gibbon's description of the fall of the Western Empire, there are many modern books that rebut him, though there is no one particularly definitive book as far as I know and there are various theories of what happened; the book itself is quite entertaining though and it's definitely worth reading since the factual events presented were as accurate as known in Gibbon's times following the surviving historical accounts.
Now of course through various studies much, much more is known and the whole "fall of the empire" is sometimes regarded as a misleading description. After all in 476 a puppet emperor was deposed by a high ranking german officer who sent his crown to Constantinople and proclaimed himself the ruler of Italy in the name of the Eastern Emperor. And not much changed in Italy for a while, until Justinian's attempts to reattach the province to his effective rule in the 530's which led to the terrible war with the Ostrogoths that devastated Italy.
Similarly the other Western provinces were only fictionally ruled from Italy in 476, with the Visigoths, Vandals, Franks, Burgunds, Huns and various other people actually forming their own kingdoms, principalities and so on inside what had once been the Western Empire, process that had started well in the late 300's (especially with the Huns emergence from Asia and their push of the Germanic tribes West, led to a massive influx of german refugees inside imperial border) and then when the terrible winter of 405/6 and the frozen Rhine led to the decisive invasion that saw the Germanic tribes installed for good in former imperial territory
So the situation was very complex and in Gibbon's time only some part of it was understood. But all in all, the book is still worth reading and it deserves its reputation being very entertaining and a "page turner" so to speak. So in my opinion the book is definitely a worthwhile and enjoyable read; what I would object to is regarding its conclusions as "definitive" and then the treatment of Byzantium as a degenerate state and not worthwhile writing about, which is so misleading and inaccurate to be almost laughable.