About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherYale University Press

ISBN-100300280084

ISBN-139780300280081

eBay Product ID (ePID)15066412714

Product Key Features

Publication Year2024

TopicAncient / Rome, United States / 21st Century, Comparative Politics

Book TitleWhy Empires Fall : Rome, America, and the Future of the West

Number of Pages200 Pages

LanguageEnglish

GenrePolitical Science, History

AuthorJohn Rapley, Peter Heather

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Length8.5 in

Item Width5.5 in

Additional Product Features

Reviews"[A] fascinating book."--Martin Wolf, Financial Times , "Best Summer Books of 2023: Economics" "[A] provocative short book . . . with a novel twist."-- The Economist "The book is certainly a useful post-Gibbonian primer in why things went wrong for the Romans--Heather's scholarship shines through its pages."-- The Telegraph "Two experienced scholars lucidly engage in contemporary debates about the future of the West and its parallels to the Roman Empire. This is comparative history done right."--David Potter, author of Disruption: Why Things Change, "[A] fascinating book."--Martin Wolf, Financial Times , "Best Summer Books of 2023: Economics" "[A] provocative short book . . . with a novel twist."-- The Economist "The book is certainly a useful post-Gibbonian primer in why things went wrong for the Romans--Heather's scholarship shines through its pages."-- The Telegraph Longlisted for the 2024 Edwards Book Award, sponsored by the Rodel Institute "Two experienced scholars lucidly engage in contemporary debates about the future of the West and its parallels to the Roman Empire. This is comparative history done right."--David Potter, author of Disruption: Why Things Change

Dewey Edition23

Dewey Decimal909/.09821

SynopsisA new perspective on parallels between ancient Rome and the modern world, and what comes next "[A] provocative short book . . . with a novel twist."-- The Economist Over the last three centuries, the West rose to dominate the planet. Then, around the start of the new millennium, history took a dramatic turn. Faced with economic stagnation and internal political division, the West has found itself in rapid decline compared to the global periphery it had previously colonized. This is not the first time we have seen such a rise and fall: the Roman Empire followed a similar arc, from dizzying power to disintegration. Historian Peter Heather and political economist John Rapley explore the uncanny parallels, and productive differences, between ancient Rome and the modern West, moving beyond the tropes of invading barbarians and civilizational decay to unearth new lessons. From 399 to 1999, they argue, through the unfolding of parallel, underlying imperial life cycles, both empires sowed the seeds of their own destruction. Has the era of Western global domination indeed reached its end? Heather and Rapley contemplate what comes next.