Product Description
2 boxed set, each wrapped in the original cellophane. Each box contains 4 books. Volumes 1-4, and Volumes 5-8
Amazon.com
British parliamentarian and soldier Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) conceived of his plan for Decline and Fall while "musing amid the ruins of the Capitol" on a visit to Rome. For the next 10 years he worked away at his great history, which traces the decadence of the late empire from the time of the Antonines and the rise of Western Christianity. "The confusion of the times, and the scarcity of authentic memorials, pose equal difficulties to the historian, who attempts to preserve a clear and unbroken thread of narration," he writes. Despite these obstacles, Decline and Fall remains a model of historical exposition, and required reading for students of European history.
Book Description
Gibbon’s masterpiece, which narrates the history of the Roman Empire from the second century a.d. to its collapse in the west in the fifth century and in the east in the fifteenth century, is widely considered the greatest work of history ever written. This abridgment retains the full scope of the original, but in a compass equivalent to a long novel. Casual readers now have access to the full sweep of Gibbon’s narrative, while instructors and students have a volume that can be read in a single term. This unique edition emphasizes elements ignored in all other abridgments—in particular the role of religion in the empire and the rise of Islam.
Download Description
"It was Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amid the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind," recorded Edward Gibbon with characteristic exactitude. Over a period of some twenty years, the luminous eighteenth-century historian--a precise, dapper, idiosyncratic little gentleman famous for rapping his snuff-box--devoted his considerable genius to writing an epic chronicle of the entire Roman Empire's decline. His single flash of inspiration produced what is arguably the greatest historical work in any language--and surely the most magnificent narrative history ever written in English. "Gibbon is one of those few who hold as high a place in the history of literature as in the roll of great historians," noted Professor J.B. Bury, his most celebrated editor.
Customer Reviews:
the decline and fall of the roman empire.......2007-08-26
very good detail on the history , most Caesars were killed and the army rulled.
Lots of Info.......2007-07-09
Tremendous amount of information and lots of historical data. Problem is the guy who wrote the book can speak the real english language and I often thought I was listning to a foreign language tape. I learned a lot and woud recomend this to anyone who wonders how something as great as the empire was, fell apart. Great learning experience.
Gibbon's Magnum Opus.......2007-05-12
It's a literary work of art. Gibbon's style of narration is breathtaking. On every page he comes out as the true scholar that he really is. His choice of words and his style of sentence construction is consummate on every level.
Other than that, the whole account is Gibbon's perspective of the Roman Empire on a strict level. While most will concur with him on the insanity of the likes of say, Caligula, Nero; or the politically cunning inclinations of Augustus, his treatment of Christianity is open to debate. Gibbon places Christianity at the top in his list of the factors that could possibly have accelerated the empire towards decadence and its ultimate disintegration. Though this can be true on some accounts, he offers no clear explanation on how the Eastern empire could have carried on for more centuries with the religion at its very centre. It's an unwritten edict that the Byzantines were more passionate about Jesus than Western christendom.
Also, in some pages, Gibbon argues that the Roman emperors, say Marcus Aurelius for example, never really would have had an inclination towards persecuting christians on grounds of political gains. For Gibbon argues that the political elite of Rome were well aware of the fact that some kind of religion maintained social order. But his arguments are at considerable, if not complete, loggerheads with the several accounts from other historians that Rome continued to persecute Christianity until Constantine.
Persecution of Christianity might necessarily not have completely been primary disdain for the christian concept which totally conflicts with the Roman edicts of deifying dead emperors. Christianity came in handy for rogue emperors to have this sect of minorities scapegoated for their own excesses (remember Nero's fire?) or to appease the minds of a disgruntled majority which preferred to suspect them.
Finally, his stand that the "whole" empire prospered and preferred Roman rule in the age of the five good emperors is open to debate. Pax Romana might have worked for the Italian mainland at best, but not necessarily in provinces even as close as, say, Gaul.
Gibbons Decline and fall of Rome.......2007-03-11
This is the definitive History of the Empire from the first emperor (Agustus or Octavian, if you wish). However given the time and hence style of English, it was written in it is not for the faint hearted. Stick with it though and it is a very rewarding reference book which you will have for life.
One thing I fail to understand is what Amazon sells Vols 1-3 and 4-6 as seperate items. By the lot in one go otherwise it's a bit like owning the old testement bible and not having set eyes on the New Testement.!!
Dramatic and Informative audio book version.......2007-03-09
Philip Madoc convincingly relates Gibbon's great insights into the history and significance of the final centuries of the Roman Empire in this 6 CD set. Abridged by neccesity, nevertheless Neville Jason comments between Gibbon's passage recited by Philip Madoc, and fills the gaps with a coherent narration. The whole production flows smoothly and dramatically, quite easy to follow. This is one of the most worthwhile audio book puchases I've ever made.
Book Description
In the greatest work of history in the English language, Edward Gibbon compresses thirteen turbulent centuries into a gripping epic narrative. It is history in the grand eighteenth-century manner, a well-researched drama charged with insight, irony, and incisive character analysis. In elegant prose, Gibbon presents both the broad pattern of events and the significant revealing detail. He delves into religion, politics, sexuality, and social mores with equal authority and aplomb. While subsequent research revealed minor factual errors about the early Empire, Gibbon's bold vision, witty descriptions of a vast cast of characters, and readiness to display his own beliefs and prejudices result in an astonishing work of history and literature, at once powerfully intelligent and enormously entertaining.
Based on David Womersley's definitive three-volume Penguin Classics edition of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, this abridgement contains complete chapters from all three volumes, linked by extended bridging passages, vividly capture the style, the argument, and the architecture of the whole work.
Customer Reviews:
Hard to Read.......2006-11-11
Not what I was expecting. Very hard to read as it was written back in the dark ages and the english used is tough.
Understand that any civilization may fail........2006-02-24
Gibbon is one of the first historians of the Enlightenment. He does not have a favorable opinion of Christianity or the times he lived. This bias does not detract from this book. Nor is this book an effective argument against Christianity. His thesis is Christianity helped bring down Rome. The Christian mindset made it impossible to defend their empire in a way similar to how they made their empire. If you lose your basic traditions your empire will crumble. An excellent book, a must read.
MISUNDERSTANDING OF BYZANTIUM.......2005-06-29
Historians agree today that this book is responsible for the modern misunderstanding of Byzantium. Think of only what the labeling "Byzantine" means today. If you want to know more about Byzantium start with one of the books on the empire by Sir Steven Runciman.
Considered the most scholarly collection of Gibbon's work.......2005-06-06
I do not recommend buying an edition of "The Decline and Fall" based upon price alone, because for many reasons, which will become clearer to you after reading this complicated and scholarly work, the editions vary in content and price, nor does price alone guarantee quality.
For many hours prior to purchasing, I researched the numerous editions offered by different publishers and read reviews, and discovered a consensus among Gibbon fans in favor of Womersley's unabridged edition, in part because it includes a complete and unmodernized text, Gibbon's own comments and notes, and his famous Vindication, a final and thorough answer to scurrilous critics of his time. All of this is provided at a quite reasonable price, considering the length of the work (in excess of 1,300 pages), albeit in soft cover which I find makes a book easier to read, if slightly less durable.
I recommend buying this new edition from Amazon, instead of the used editions also offered here, because many of them, I discovered after investigating, are not the same as this one I am reviewing (ISBN 0-14-043393-7, which is Volume I). Like I said, there are many editions of Gibbon's masterpiece floating about, old and new, of varying quality and content. The vendors' failure to disclose the ISBN in their descriptions prohibits any purchase by the discriminating. Just pay the seventeen or so bucks for the new book, which is dirt cheap for a work of this magnitude.
There should be no need to defend Gibbon nor his work, which is simply the best I have yet read. I loved history as a boy, even while reading the simple and often stupid books offered in school. Imagine how much more I enjoyed history written by such a master of prose as Gibbon, the most thorough, meticulous and honest historian I have yet encountered.
We owe a debt of gratitude to a historian who has perused enormous quantities of ancient texts in Latin and Greek and other languages, such as would confound the vast majority of readers today, and with his formidable powers of intellect, analyzed their veracity, by comparing one against the other, and judged keenly of their worth. Gibbon had for his time a vast encyclopedic knowledge, for by his own admission, he devoted his life to reading. Gibbon's love was not among humans, but among books. He possessed an excellent understanding of government, which is the more understandable when you discover he served as a Member of Parliament for a number of years. His grasp of military science is explained in part by his service in the militia as an officer. To all these things, we must add an innate, profound understanding of human nature.
Why bother with Gibbon? Why not read the original, the ancient and medieval writers, from whom Gibbon based his work? That is a good question that I asked myself. Here is the answer. We cannot trust the ancient writers to be truthful or accurate in every event. For one thing, they sometimes contradict each other, which means one or both are lying. Also, they leave out important details, which can be pieced together by circumstantial evidence, if you have found it by exhaustive research.
This is where Gibbon comes in. He has performed exhaustive research that consumed a large portion of his scholarly and reflective lifetime. Gibbon is no fool, and never succumbs to the usual vices of enthusiasm or its opposite, cynicism. He is calm, rational, penetrative; just the guide and the mentor you want. He never takes an ancient historian at face value without considering their motives, prejudices, passions, and even their personal histories. Gibbon has studied not just the history, but the historians, and the history of the historian's countries. Not only has Gibbon accumulated and summarized the ancient and medieval texts, but interpreted and analyzed with his considerable deductive powers, to form a whole that is greater than the parts. Thus a novice does better with Gibbon than with the original. Gibbon's copious notes explain where has made interpretations, leaving you free to form different conclusions, should you desire.
Some reviewers are peeved that Gibbon suffers an opinion that disagrees with their own, and for this reason alone, they degrade his work. I experience the same treatment by those who are alarmed that my reviews have an actual opinion instead of being a rubber stamp marked "PERFECTION". If this intolerant philosophy were carried on, then no-one should dare express an unseasonable opinion of anything at all, and we should all become a tribe of dullards. Of course Gibbon expresses many opinions, some the inevitable product of his country, class and times; and this is the mark of intellectual honesty. You should never read without a critical mind, and should be prepared to disagree with an author on some issues, as I do with Gibbon, while agreeing with him on others. I especially favor his ideas concerning the causes and effects of the rise of Christianity, many of which can be observed today.
Look to find a better history than this, in any language, written during any time since the advent of letters. Look far and wide, as long as you like... and then revisit Gibbon, and see whether you have yet found an equal.
Overrated.......2004-07-16
I enjoyed this book, but some of the praise for it ("the best history book ever written in the English language!!") is over the top. It is no coincidence that intellectuals have embraced this history of the Roman empire above all others - the author is openly skeptical of Christianity and sympathetic to barbarians.
Gibbon's writing skills are also overrated in my opinion. Using 20 words to express a point that could be expressed in 10 words is, in my book, bad writing. For example, instead of writing "XYZ is true", Gibbon will write "It would not be incorrect for an observer to note that XYZ is true". This gets exhausting after a few hundred pages. He also overuses certain words, such as 'insensibly'.
Book Description
Volumes 1, 2, and 3 of the Bury Text, in a boxed set. Introduction by Hugh Trevor-Roper
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
A Standard, Like it or not.......2006-10-17
Gibbon must be taken in the context of his time - his writing style, his prejudices, and his occasional lapse into sermonizing. His style is to say in 30-words what others would say in less than 10. His prejudices are many but one that seems to permeate most is the over-emphasis on the western empire at the expense of the east. It is as if the eastern empire did not survive another millennia after the fall of the west. But given difficult reading and language constructs and the slanted views, a greater work on the subject of the western empire probably does not exist. It is an essential though somewhat distasteful standard for anyone interested in Roman history. As yet, there is nothing comparable in scope for the western empire. For a balanced and more readable coverage of the east, I would highly recommend supplementing with the works of John Julius Norwich.
a necessary evil for self-education, I guess.......2006-05-02
There are three things to know about this book. It was written at about the same time America's Founding Fathers were writing the Constitution. Gibbon uses the EXTREMELY flowerly, convoluted, difficult prose of the time. Use the "look inside" feature, if you can. This is DIFFICULT reading. So, someone trying to learn about history might despair that it's hard to actually swallow the concepts because of the diffucult language.
Second, this book is really long. This is abridged. Yeah. So what. There are almost NO paragraph markers, the type is small (8 point or so, I guess), and it's about...what, 1200 pages? This is the War and Peace of history books.
Third, I'm still reading the damn thing. Every historian who EVER discussed Rome started with Gibbon. His is the most important work in the field. It is THE standard. No matter what history book you are reading about Rome from, say, 100 A.D. onward, the author will INVARIABLY use a phrase like, "Gibbon says BLAHBLAHBLAH." Like you're supposed to know who Gibbon is. Like you're supposed to have read the book. Well, I just didn't want to be the ONLY one who hadn't read the thing, since I'm studying history, trying to educate myself. It's a slog, but I think it's a necessary one. I'll be glad when it's over, and I'll be glad to say I've read it.
The English Language Doesn't Get Much Better.......2006-03-13
Gibbon was a master of the English language. He wanted to write something great, and he achieved it. No serious student of history should miss reading this masterpiece.
Understand what it is BEFORE you start.......2006-01-26
If you don't know about Edward Gibbon or this work then you really need to check out the "Look inside this book" feature that Amazon offers. Make sure you read the first couple of pages of the book. The reason I say this is that this book is not your typical history. The language is extremely tedious. I know some will say it is elegant, grand, whatever other adjective they can come up with. I just see it as making the subject much more difficult to comprehend. You will find yourself reading and re-reading and re-reading sections in order to pull out what this man is trying to say.
Now, having slammed the writing, I will say that there are some good stories in here. Gibbon is definitely opinionated. He doesn't shy away from injecting his opinion on just about every occurance in the history. Not that there's anything wrong with this approach. Just know what you're getting.
Finally, as you will deduce from looking inside at the index, this history leaves out the first few hundred years of Rome's history (it is, after all, about the DECLINE AND FALL of Rome...and that didn't start until around 300 C.E.). This is important because, if you are hoping to read about the murder of Caesar and some of those stories....it isn't in here. Again, look inside the book and study what you see very carefully before you purchase.
Problematic abridgement to remarkable book.......2005-07-24
This essential read's only drawback is the introduction and perhaps the aim of the abridgement. Gibbon wrote his masterpiece in the 18th century at the time of the American revolution. Clearly influenced by the ideals of the time, by the experiment of mass democracy in republican form, not tried since Rome and by new ideas of economics set out by Adam Smith as well as the ideals of the enlightenment, Gibbon penned his classic volumes on the fall of the Roman Empire. Previous abridgements focused on the destruction of the western empire, this one follows the volumes through to the rise of the Church and the fall of the eastern empire. Amazing sketches are given not only of the barbarian tribes of Europe but also of the Parthians, Ehtiopians, the old churches of Nestorians, diophysites and Monophsysites the Copts and of course the religion of Islam. What is most fascinating here is the level of enlightenment of the author and exposes the lies that many in the west were taught, namely that t he west is intolerant and racist. In fact Gibbon shows us through his beautiful language that perhaps not only were people more intelligent and insightful in 1776 but in his treatise on the rise of Islam and the life of Mohommed we get perhaps a more insightful and tolerant but critical view then most will get today in an entire program of Islamic studies. This illuminates two lies, first the lie that the west was narrow minded and self centered and ignorant until just recently when we embraced `diversity' and secondly that the modern view of Islam is not only not revolutionary, but that it is not modern. Gibbon was perhaps more modern, more intelligent, and more dynamic with his sense of whit and reality then most scholars today, and certainly then most `accepted knowledge' Much can be learned from this masterpiece, not only insights into church-state relations, taxation and warfare, but also the question of tyranny and the question of fanaticism, as well as how best a society can defend itself from enemies both outside and inside.
The message of the forward to this abridgement is deeply flawed. HANS-FRIEDRICH MUELLER, who did the abridgement remarks that many `born again' Americans will find the book `offensive' because the author questions the role of organized religion and faith. This is patently untrue and shows the ignorance of the European abridger in his self centered and arrogant interpretation of the world. We see that the same forward directs us to understand the message that Gibbon brings, the bigotry and incessant war and `empire' and apparently the power of the elite lead to the destruction of Rome. Be warned this was not the message of Gibbon. Rome guarded itself against barbarian invasions for more than a thousand years. In its corruption it died, in the laziness and arrogance of its people it died. In not having its own soldiers at the frontiers it died. Gibbons message has nothing to do with America or with the American system, it has everything to do with why Europe has collapsed and is disappearing.
Seth J. Frantzman
Average customer rating:
- Food for thought
- Lousy fiction
- not her best work by a long shot...
- Missing the Mark
- Good, Evil, Men, Women - the Eternal Battle
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Gibbon's Decline and Fall
Sheri S. Tepper
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ASIN: 0553100548
Release Date: 1996-07-01 |
Amazon.com
Science fiction is a genre traditionally dominated by male fantasy and values, where Terminator-style machismo saves the universe. Sheri S. Tepper writes feminist science fiction. Exit Terminator, enter Sophy. Sophy was a standout in her college class, for all kinds of reasons from looks to brains to spiritual qualities; she was also reticent about her origins. It is only when she disappears that her former classmates begin to discover just how special she was. Woven into Tepper's cosmology is the matriarchal system that once held sway on earth before males usurped that power. It turns out the "Goddess" is alive.
Book Description
A wave of fundamentalism is sweeping across the globe as the millennium approaches, and a power-hungry presidential candidate sees his ticket to success in making an example out of a teenage girl who abandoned her infant in a Dumpster. Taking the girl's case is Carolyn Crespin, a former attorney, who left her job for a quiet family life. Now she must call upon five friends from college, who took a vow to always stand together. But their success might depend on the assistance of Sophy, the enigmatic sixth friend, whom they all believed dead.
Customer Reviews:
Food for thought.......2007-01-10
One of the best books I've ever read. It's a rather feminist book, but it deals mainly with the way some people want to have power over others and the reasons for that. It suggests solutions wich will make you think. What would be my choice? It is a fantasy book but it is too near the reality for comfort.
Lousy fiction.......2005-12-31
As far as fiction goes, this book is terrible. I'm not getting into the politics of this work; I don't agree with them, but that's never stopped me from enjoying good fiction.
But, wow, this isn't good. People have complained about her lack of developed male characters, which implies that she developed her female characters--she didn't. You had the successful woman, the lesbian, the celibate, repressed lesbian, and the trophy wife. Hurray for the parade of cliched stock characters.
Ignoring the male characters would be forgiveable; they're mostly bit players in her story anyway. But these female characters were her main protaganist, and they felt as undeveloped as something from a first year college student's attempt at fiction. It was just terrible. They didn't have any real personality at all. The true villian is laughably evil, and the author relies on the old "nasty alien" trick(how many times has this been done, and done better?). The human villians are over-the-top, cardboard cutouts. It's almost like someone wrote a paradoy of Hitler and used that as a template.
The writing was also ghastly, clunky and akward. The sentences didn't flow, the plot was obvious in advance, and the tie-ins were streched so far as to be simply stupid. I'm sorry, but even if you agree with the messages of the book, it's a lousy excuse for fiction. Good fiction makes you suspend doubt, and immerse yourself in the author's world. The terrible characters, and the lousy writing, simply make that impossible for this work. I'd heard good things about the author, and so put her on my Christmas list--but after this, I'm probably not going to try her again.
not her best work by a long shot..........2005-03-01
I've read two of Tepper's other books: Family Tree and The Visitor, and they were both much better written than this one. I ploughed along through it because I wanted to see how it ended, but the writing here just isn't up to the usual high standard or her writing. I can't help thinking that this was an old manuscript that she wrote a long time ago, that was published after she became successful. The style of writing comes across as if it were written by someone who lived in the 50's or 60's, not someone who is living now. The one thing that was interesting was the parallel between the events she describes in the book and things that seem to be happening now, but that doesn't make up for the dated, stilted feeling of the writing.
Missing the Mark.......2004-12-28
First, let's get this straight. I love Tepper. I do NOT consider her a "feminist" author, but a humanist one. Gibbon, however, is notable for a lot of male-bashing. The biggest problem with the book, however, is not its broadly-drawn male characters; it is not the rather fanciful idea that fundamentalists of all natures could get together to remove women's rights. No, the biggest problem with the book is that she has fallen into a trap that has distinguished other writers of sci-fi. (Notably, John D. MacDonald in both "Ballroom of the Skies" and "Wine of the Dreamers" and perhaps Tim Powers' "Dinner at Deviant's") The trap is to create an "outside" entity...an alien, and place at least part of the blame for humanity's inhumanity on the alien.
I don't have any problems with the unlikely friendships. I fully understand a 15-year-old rape victim unable to fathom that what she birthed was really a baby. I love the idea of the Saurian race, particularly as I am a big fan of the whole idea of parthenogenesis in the first place.
But to place even a part of the blame for our behavior on an "alien" is to provide an excuse for our behavior. Tepper herself, in one of her other books, states that we have problems believing that others are truly evil, because each of us knows, deep down, that we ourselves have the capacity for evil. Everyone was once someone's son or daughter...no matter how evil they may have become, it is a sorry person indeed that has no one to mourn him/her.
OK, sci-fi authors, let's quit looking outside ourselves for the source of evil. Time to look inside.
Good, Evil, Men, Women - the Eternal Battle.......2004-05-23
Is there really some force that drives men to mistreat and abuse women? Is such behavior inherent in the biological makeup of humans? Can it be modified via chemical means or by changing some small portion of the human DNA structure? Or, perhaps, is this a cultural, learned trait that can be eradicated with proper education and training? What influence does organized religion have on the relationship between the sexes? These questions form the primary focus of this novel, a novel that perhaps can be considered a feminist tract, but may also be considered as a good story about an age-old problem.
From a starting point of the mundane world of 1959, when seven women of very different personalities enter college and form a tight bond with each other, this book travels in quiet, incremental stages to a world that is frightening and strange but in all too many ways much too believable. For by the year 2000 (this book was written in 1996), bands of men roam the streets with whips, looking for any woman who is sinful enough to dress in skirts that expose their legs, and such attacks on women are carefully ignored by police, where the Pope allies with Islamic fundamentalists in calling for women's place in the world to be limited and totally subservient to men, and women's colleges are being bombed. For those who say "this could never happen", it should be kept in mind that societies' ideas about what is proper and moral can change, and change drastically, and not just towards a more liberal set of ideas. The return to Islamic fundamentalism in Iran happened quickly, and with the support of good portion of its populace. Still, it is a bit of stretch to imagine such a change in just the four years that Tepper's scenario envisions.
But she has a reason for having such changes happen so quickly - behind her story of normal men and women there is another force, the Alliance, headed by one of the richest men in the world. A man who seems bent on enslaving all the women of the world, with the resources to bend and influence a large number of men, who is planning on an apocalypse with only his chosen favored few as survivors. How the college band of women, now in late middle age, with careers, children, and for some, husbands, work towards unraveling the mystery of why the world is changing so fast forms the heart of the plot. From FBI files to biology laboratories, with murders and judge-buying, Tepper adds believable elements to her story, making the first three-quarters of this book a good read, even if you don't believe that all men are evil or that women have always been downtrodden. Her women characters are well drawn, most especially those of Carolyn Crespin, the main protagonist, Faye as a lesbian sculptor, and Agnes as a nun with doubts. Her male characters, those that we see, are not so good - either impossibly cold and power obsessed, or too acquiescent and thinly drawn.
But the tail end of this book was a let down, as Tepper spins off into not just the realm of plausible science fiction, but into religious fantasy. And in doing so, I think her message about how the sexes should relate to each other gets diluted, as blame for poor treatment of women can be shifted to hormonal drives and/or the influence of a supernatural being. I think this book would have been better if it had stayed within the world of today, and looked a little deeper into the social dynamics driving gender relationships, without call to external forces or scientific breakthroughs to either explain or change such behavior.
Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
Book Description
Gripping, powerfully intelligent, and wonderfully entertaining, Gibbon's classic account of Rome ranks as one of the literary masterpieces of its age. Attacked for its enlightened views on politics, sexuality, and religion, the first volume was nonetheless found on every table and received widespread acclaim for its elegant prose. Famously skeptical about Christianity, unexpectedly sympathetic to the barbarian invaders and the Byzantine Empire, constantly aware of how political leaders often achieve the exact opposite of what they intend, Gibbon captured both the broad pattern of events and the significant revealing detail. This abridged edition compresses thirteen turbulent centuries into a single epic narrative, and features a foreword, introduction, and extended appreciation by Hugh Trevor-Roper, an esteemed professor of history at Oxford University.
Customer Reviews:
An amazing work.......2007-03-27
I gave this book 5 stars because of the incredible content. The book is well written and fairly easy to read, though it is very long. I can't imagine reading the entire volume set written by Gibbons. The only problem I have with this book is that the author does drone on a bit.
Book Description
This fourth volume in John Pocock's great sequence on Barbarism and Religion focuses on the idea of barbarism. Barbarism was central to the history of western historiography, to the history of the enlightenment, and to Edward Gibbon himself. As a concept it was deeply problematic to enlightened historians seeking to understand their own civil societies in the light of exposure to newly-discovered civilizations hitherto beyond the reach of history. The troubled relationship between philosophy and history is addressed directly in this fourth volume.
Book Description
The second volume of Barbarism and Religion explores the historiography of Enlightenment, and looks at Gibbon's intellectual relationship with writers sucah as Giannone, Voltaire, Hume, Robertson, Ferguson and Adam Smith. Edward Gibbon's intellectual trajectory is both similar but at points crucially distinct from the dominant Latin "Enlightened narrative" these thinkers developed. The interaction of philosophy, erudition and narrative is central to enlightened historiography, and John Pocock again shows how the Decline and Fall is both akin to but distinct from the historiographical context within which Gibbon wrote his great work.
Product Description
"While Gibbon's literary brilliance and ironic power are always praised, it should not be forgotten that The Decline and Fall remains, despite subsequent research, a masterly history, a bridge, as Mme. Necker said, between the ancient and modern worlds. The present selections do justice to both aspects of Gibbon's greatness. Gibbon divided his volumes equally between the three centuries.... In this abridgement greater space is given to the first and, historically speaking, most valuable half."
Book Description
In this first volume, The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, John Pocock follows Gibbon through his youthful exile in Switzerland and his criticisms of the Encyclopédie and traces the growth of his historical interests down to the conception of the Decline and Fall itself.
Download Description
'Barbarism and Religion' - Edward Gibbon's own phrase - is the title of an acclaimed sequence of works by John Pocock designed to situate Gibbon, and his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in a series of contexts in the history of eighteenth-century Europe. This is a major intervention from one of the world's leading historians of ideas, challenging the notion of any one 'Enlightenment' and positing instead a plurality of enlightenments, of which the English was one. In this first volume, The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, John Pocock follows Gibbon through his youthful exile in Switzerland and his criticisms of the EncyclopÈdie, and traces the growth of his historical interests down to the conception of the Decline and Fall itself.
Customer Reviews:
Enlightenments, Not Enlightenment.......2007-02-02
This is the introductory volume to Pocock's masterful study of Gibbon and the Enlightenment. The volume is readable and intensely well-written--clarifying abstract and arcane philosophical and historical minutiae with finesse and grace. The historian's writing style is easily gotten used to and anyone who's read Gibbon will certainly appreciate the aesthetics of Pocock's narrative. Readers used to Hemingway's style might find some getting used to the longer paragraphs but even the Grand Old Man appreciated master storytellers. And Pocock is surely that and more. This is easily the greatest work by one of the greatest English-speaking historians in history.
Pocock's master-plan is ambitious and you might need to reread some chapters to get the full impact and import of what he's saying. He marshals some powerful analytical tools to arrange his material but the technical apparatus rarely shows, unless you go looking for it. Should yo do so, you'll find not only a master narrativist but also a formidable philosopher working behind the scenes.
The book, as you might guess, is not simply about Gibbon the historian. It is also about how historians write history and how, especially, the historian is influenced by the ideas and assumptions of their lives and the times they live in and through. In this way, Pocock's work here is as much about Gibbon as it is about the Enlightenment. Therefore, in the process of delving into Gibbon's life and thought, we also come into contact with Hume, Voltaire, and Adam Smith.
Pocock unearths some starling angles of interpretation on the Enlightenment that undermine the stereotypes of that era. Perhaps one of Pocock's more arresting assertions is that there was not just one Enlightenment but several Enlightenments. This insight alone is worth the price and time spent on getting the entire series.
Subtext: Not Gibbon's Text.......2003-07-31
This a masterful display of Pocock's ability to marshal the minutia of history over and against the History under discussion - judging great works by a morass of trivia. The difficulty with such a discussion of Gibbon is its ability to tyrannize the reader's perception of a work by appealing to such a vast amount of data. There is no doubt Pocock may be correct concerning every single point, but one cannot know on his authority alone.
The book has scholarly merit, but it should be the last thing on anyone's list who wants to understand Gibbon on Gibbon's own terms.
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