The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History

xvi, 572 pp. Includes two sections of black-and-white plates. "The mysterious death of the western half of the Roman Empire was one of the fundamental revolutions of history, a sequence of events that profoundly changed the world. In this new major account, Peter Heather challenges the traditional view of a corrupt, over-civilized, Christian Empire in terminal decline. Drawing on his unrivaled knowledge of barbarian peoples and making full use of recent archaeological discoveries and radical re-readings of classical texts, he has written a thrilling, startling new narrative of the period. In part an entertaining and evocative journey through the world of the fourth and fifth centuries, it is also en epic tale of civilizations battling for survival. Rome fell, Heather reveals, not through weakness, but as a result of the forces unleashed by its ferocious success."