Gibbon?
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Durant. I had his 'Lessons of History' recommended recently, so was checking out his rap sheet. Apparently one of this most quoted passages.
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On reflection several of those phrases are pretty atemporal for Gibbon, who wouldn't have known a class struggle if it turned up on his doorstep with pitchforks and torches. (He has an entertaining cameo in BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON iirc, on which I am basing this claim.)
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CAPTAIN Gibbon would surely have understood class struggle, having trained to possibly bear arms and command men in one. He just wouldn’t have known of the phrase.
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Didn't the class struggle in Rome end with the rise of Augustus? Neither see the correlation or causation with decline and "class struggle". Decline began after seceding land to the goths following adrianopole, hundreds of years later.
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And with the rise of Christianity, Romes moral picture was improving at the time of decline. Banning of gladiatorial games, animal sacrifice etc.
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Leading indicator: mystery religions
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Taking care of pious ppl cost a lot.
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Durant, however, refers to the Western part of the Roman Empire. The Eastern part survived for 1.000 years more (until 1453), struggling with similar issues, but still managing to produce significant works of art and culture.
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And "failing trade" is a new one for me. If you mean grain deliveries from North Africa were reduced because vandals had cut them off, that's one thing. But it seems like a strained allusion to current political events. Maybe I'm reading into it.
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And, there were still opportunities Rome could have saved itself.
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Have you seen a good comparison of Roman decline to American decline? I think it all the time, but haven’t seen a good piece on it
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