The Decline and Fall of the Western Roman Empire

by Dr David M. Gwynn
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15 books
The Roman Empire dominated the Mediterranean world for more than 500 years. Yet in AD 476, Romulus Augustulus, the last western Roman emperor, was deposed. Roman rule in Western Europe had come to an end, replaced by a mosaic of independent Germanic kingdoms. This transformation remains one of the most significant and controversial episodes in European history, immortalized by Edward Gibbon as the “Decline and Fall” of the Roman Empire. It must immediately be pointed out that the Roman Empire as a whole did not fall in the fifth century. The Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire endured for another thousand years until Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, and any attempt to explain why Roman power collapsed in the West must also explain the East’s survival (this is the difficulty, for example, with attributing Rome’s fall to the rise of Christianity). As can be seen from the books listed below, modern scholars continue to debate the causes behind the Western Empire’s decline, particularly how internal weaknesses and civil wars interacted with the impact of external invasions led by the Goths and, behind them, the Huns. It is a complex, fascinating, and, at times, tragic story that profoundly changed the course of Western civilization.
The booklist has been divided into three sections for ease of access. The first section (The Fall of the West) contains books specifically focused on the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The second section (Goths, Huns, and Franks) provides reading on the peoples who played the greatest roles in reshaping the Roman West. The final section (The New World Order) offers a wider perspective on the transformation of East and West and the ongoing influence of Rome’s Decline and Fall on the modern imagination.
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The Fall of the West

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Edward Gibbon, 2013
Any list of books on the fall of the Western Roman Empire would seem incomplete without Gibbon’s masterpiece. Gibbon wrote his history 250 years ago, contemporary with the American War of Independence, and many of his arguments are inevitably now significantly out of date. He particularly underestimated the survival of the Roman Empire in the east, which challenges the emphasis he wished to place on internal decline and the loss of Rome’s fighting spirit. Yet Gibbon’s memorable prose remains a joy to read and his insights still have considerable value, most notably those he expressed in the “General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire”, a short essay that he attached to chapter 38 of his huge work.

The Fall of the Roman Empire

A New History of Rome and the Barbarians
Peter Heather, 2007
The twenty-first century has seen revived interest in the Western Roman Empire’s fall and the lessons that Rome’s fate can teach us today. I had the good fortune to hear Heather lecture in Oxford while he was preparing this excellent book, which played a key role in that revival. It is not a short book, but Heather manages to balance deep scholarly knowledge with an engrossing narrative exploring the complex interplay of external and internal factors that lay behind the Western Empire’s collapse. Heather particularly highlights the impact of the Goths and Huns, on whom see later entries in this list, and he vividly presents the decline of imperial power as a “domino effect,” with each territory lost, making it more difficult for the emperors to protect, what remained until eventually all was gone.

The Fall of Rome

And the End of Civilization
Bryan Ward-Perkins, 2006
This book must be read alongside Heather’s work above. Both books were written simultaneously in Oxford, but Ward-Perkins has a very different approach and offers profound and, at times, unsettling insights that modern readers can draw from Rome’s fate. Ward-Perkins still provides a concise overview of the collapse of Roman power in the West and the external and internal forces at work. His greatest interest, however, lies in what these events meant for ordinary people and how the material evidence of archaeology reveals changing standards of living. His conclusion is stark: “The end of the Roman West witnessed horrors and dislocation of a kind I sincerely hope never to have to live through; and it destroyed a complex civilization, throwing the inhabitants of the West back to a standard of living typical of prehistoric times”.

The Fall of the West

The Slow Death of the Roman Superpower
Adrian Goldsworthy, Adrian Keith Goldsworthy, 2010
The years since the books by Heather and Ward-Perkins appeared have seen a steady flow of new publications on the same broad themes. Goldsworthy’s contribution is a long but highly readable book that is strengthened by covering in detail the background before the Germanic invasions began. The Roman Empire changed significantly during the third-century crisis, followed by the reforms introduced by emperors Diocletian and Constantine between AD 284 and 337. More than half of Goldsworthy’s text explores this background, setting the scene for his narrative of the invasions and their impact. Good maps, a glossary, and a detailed chronology also help make this book accessible, while the epilogue meditates on similarities and differences between fallen Rome and the modern USA.

The Rome that Did Not Fall

The Survival of the East in the Fifth Century
Gerard Friell, Stephen Williams, 2005
This is a slightly older book, which I have included here because it provides an accessible counterpoint to the many books like those listed above, which focus on the collapse of Roman power in the West. Whenever we speak of the “Decline and Fall” of the Western Roman Empire, it is essential to remember that the Eastern Roman Empire did not fall and, indeed, endured for another thousand years as the empire of Byzantium. Williams and Friell provide a clear overview of the East’s survival in the fifth century, despite the threats posed by Goths, Huns and Persians, and do justice to the Eastern Roman emperors and empresses whose achievements in securing that survival have not always received the appreciation they deserve.
Goths, Huns and Franks

Goths and Romans, 332-489

Peter J. Heather, 1994
The Goths played a crucial role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and for a short period, either side of AD 500 dominated much of Western Europe. Gothic history is a complicated and controversial subject, however, with difficult sources and large gaps in our literary and archaeological evidence. This book, Heather’s second entry in the list, provides an excellent guide to those problems and how they might be resolved. The opening section is particularly valuable for those interested in our only major source actually written by a Goth, the Getica of Jordanes, and Heather also explores in depth how the Visigoths and Ostrogoths emerged as independent peoples while narrating the period that saw the famous Sack of Rome by Alaric in 410.

The Goths

Lost Civilizations
David M. Gwynn, 2017
I have included my own book at this point, as my approach to the Goths draws upon the foundation that Heather laid but provides a wider-ranging and, I hope, more accessible introduction to the Gothic peoples and their remarkable legacy. The first half of the book traces the original Goths from their mysterious homeland of Scandza to their settlements north of the Black Sea and then into the Roman Empire. At their peak, Visigothic and Ostrogothic kings ruled southern France, Spain and Italy, only to be swept away in their turn, with Visigothic Spain the last to fall to Islam in 711. The second half of my book then traces the diverse Gothic heritage from the Renaissance and Reformation down to the modern day, exploring how the Goths came to be remembered as both barbaric destroyers and heroic champions of liberty.

The Huns

Hyun Jin Kim, 2015
Few peoples in history are so important and yet so mysterious as the Huns. These nomadic horsemen played a critical role in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, first by driving Germanic peoples like the Goths across the imperial frontiers and then through direct attacks on Roman territories. Yet the Huns have left no written records and scholars continue to debate their language, culture, and ethnic identity. Kim’s impressively compact book not only introduces the Huns and their history but sets them within their full geographic scope from China and India to Western Europe. Some of his claims regarding later Hun influence are perhaps over-stated, but the breadth of Kim’s book is invaluable and brings to life the true complexity of Hun society.

Attila The Hun

Barbarian Terror and the Fall of the Roman Empire
Christopher Kelly, 2011
The most famous Hun is, of course, Attila, the Flagellum Dei (Whip of God), as he was called in later Christian texts. Much of Attila’s life is unknown, yet his impact on the Roman world was profound as he united the Huns and their subject peoples under his control and threatened the Roman provinces from the Balkans to Gaul (modern France). Kelly brings together everything that is known about Attila in a clear and engaging narrative, drawing particularly on Priscus of Panium, a Roman historian who went on an embassy to Attila’s court, and provides an eyewitness account of the great king’s power and political skill. Attila’s story culminates in his invasion of Gaul and Italy in 451-2 and then his sudden death, which led to the dramatic collapse of Hun power.

The Franks

Edward James, 1991
The Goths and Huns played the most prominent external roles in the Roman Empire’s fall in the West, and in AD 500, Gothic kings ruled over much of Western Europe. By the end of AD 711, however, those Gothic kingdoms had disappeared. Only one early Germanic people managed to create a lasting state that laid the foundation for a modern country. This was the Franks. James’ book is now over thirty years old but still provides an outstanding introduction to how the Franks emerged from the banks of the Rhine, their conquests under King Clovis (c.481-511), who converted to catholic Christianity, and the textual and material culture which the Franks have left behind as they built the kingdom from which Charlemagne and modern France would rise.
The New World Order

Introduction to Early Medieval Western Europe, 300-900

The Sword, the Plough and the Book
Matthew Innes, 2007
For those seeking to understand the transformation of early medieval Europe from Constantine to Charlemagne, Innes’ Introduction offers an excellent starting point. Beginning in AD 300 allows Innes to provide a solid background on the Roman Empire before the Germanic invasions began, while the book then covers the rise and fall of the Gothic kingdoms of Italy and Spain, the Merovingian Franks, and Britain and Ireland, where Roman culture exerted far less influence than elsewhere. Charlemagne and the Carolingians were the products of this early medieval world as well as pointing ahead to future developments. Innes packs great depth into his clear and concise chapters while also providing extensive guidance for anyone desiring further reading.

Framing the Early Middle Ages

Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800
Chris Wickham, 2006
There are a number of sizeable volumes in this book list, and Framing the Early Middle Ages is one of the largest at more than 800 pages (not including bibliography). Yet every page of Wickham’s book deserves close attention as he explores the full expanse of the Mediterranean world and beyond to Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia. Wickham draws textual and archaeological evidence together skillfully to compare the different regions and their social and economic structures during and after the Western Roman Empire’s collapse. I personally would like to see greater emphasis placed on the role of religion, which is, to a degree, marginalized behind Wickham’s socio-economic approach. However, the range and depth of Wickham’s analysis is remarkable and makes the book essential reading.

The Rise of Western Christendom

Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000
Peter Brown, 2012
The collapse of Roman power in the West saw the empire replaced by a mosaic of Germanic kingdoms. There was no political structure to unite the early medieval west, no linguistic unity as the Romance languages began to evolve away from Latin, and no uniform culture, although all the kingdoms were influenced by Roman elements to varying degrees. What did increasingly come to unite Western Europe was religion. Brown’s classic work has appeared in multiple updated editions and remains the standard introduction to Western Christendom in all its startling diversity, from the growing prestige of the papacy and the rise of monasteries and saintly cults to rural rituals and the ongoing efforts to convert new peoples and define the boundaries of Christianity.

The Lost World of Byzantium

Jonathan Harris, 2015
The Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, centered in the city of Constantinople, survived the collapse of the West by almost a millennium. As I have already emphasized several times, when studying the fate of the Western Roman Empire, we must always remember the survival of its Eastern counterpart, which shared many of the same social, political, and religious structures and yet endured. The Lost World of Byzantium, written by one of my colleagues at Royal Holloway, is a superb and accessible introduction that covers over a thousand years in just 250 pages. Harris traces the Eastern Empire’s fluctuating fortunes from Constantine and Justinian through the Arab Conquests and the Crusades to the final fall in 1453, when the Byzantines (who called themselves hoi romaioi, the Romans) gave way to the Ottoman Turks.

The Modern Cultural Myth of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Jonathan Theodore, 2016
It is a particular pleasure to conclude my list with this recent book, written by an author whom I originally taught as a first-year undergraduate. As the title suggests, this is not a book on the actual fall of Rome. Instead, Theodore explores perceptions of Rome’s Decline and Fall in British and American culture from the late nineteenth century down almost to the present day. By comparing literature, film, and other media, Theodore demonstrates both the enduring influence of Rome’s fall on the modern Western imagination and how the fate of Rome can be reinterpreted to serve different contemporary concerns. The Roman Empire dominated Western Europe for more than 500 years. Whenever we seek to understand how that great empire came to fall, we inevitably ask ourselves how our world might also change.