Customer Reviews
Probably the best book on the subject - By: wacky, 22 Nov 2008 
I've been interestedin this period of the history for a while but never found a book good enough to explain all the events. This book is thoroughly researched, scholarly yet writtenin a style & language easy to follow. A couple of reviewers have put foward the point that this book is more about the rise of the barbarians than the fall of the Roman empire. I'm afraid this is not correct as the two are inextricably intertwined. This book comes with the highest recommendation.
An enthralling account of the fall of Rome - By: Matthew Turner, 04 Sep 2008 This is a book which is as every bit of epic as its subject matter. Peter Heather writesin an accessible, easy-to-follow manner making this book ideal for the layperson, scholar & student. Rather than seeing the end of the western Roman Empire as a result of internal decline & internecine warfare (the Edward Gibbon approach), Heather argues that the Empire fell due to the rise of the Germanic tribes north of the Danube, both economically & politically into supergroups, which became too strong for the western resources to ovecome. Coupled with this, argues Heather, the movement of the Hunsin the 370s, forcing the Greuthungi & Tervingi Goths onto Roman territory, & again between 395-420 onto the Great Hungarian Plain, forcing this time more Goths, Burgundians & Alans etc, provided the catalyst for barbarian encroachment upon Roman territory. Each loss of teritory meant loss of revenue with which to pay the diminishing legions. The most telling of losses were the rich African provinces to the Vandals. Really, it is not so much as the decline of the west, but the rise of the barbarians, caused by the sudden appearance, & disappearance, of the Huns.
Other reviewers have provided more in-depth looks at the pros & cons of this book - with which I would agree (in particular some of the contemporary language & jokes would seem out of place)- therefore I will not repeat them here. Suffice to say this is an excellent, informative account of one of the world's most important events.
Thoroughly recommended.
Contemporary but flawed - By: Franco, 21 Oct 2007 
While this is not a bad history I would echo some points made by other reviewers here; not so much about The Fall of Rome as The Rise of the Barbarians & marred by some inaccuracies, would-be hip phrases & chapter headings & particularly by suppositions being referred to as facts. It is also over-long & suffers a tendency to digressionin places. For those wishing to delve into the fall of the empirein the west it would be preferable to begin with Michael Grant's excellent 'The Fall of the Roman Empire' & Arthur Ferrill's 'The Fall of the Roman Empire - The Military Explanation'. Heather is particularly weak on military aspects & an understanding of these is crucial as to why the Western Roman Empire fell. Incidentally, Ferrill & Grant are both conspicuously absent from Heather's bibliography...now why is that I wonder? All that aside, as a history of the rise of the barbarians this is still quite good & as such is not so much a new history as a return to older theories that the empire fell primarily due to external rather than internal pressures. Do read this by all means - but after Grant & Ferrill!
Excellent Account of a Monumental Event - By: M. W. Stone, 28 Jul 2007 The "Fall of the Roman Empire" casts a huge shadow. A vast Empire, one of the "great civilisations" of history, wentin barely a century from being the "sole superpower" to a mere plaything of barbarian tribes.
Why did it happen? All sorts of reasons can be offered, & Heather offers several, but what it comes down to is that this is simply what empires do - they rise, they exist for a time - years, decades or (asin Romes's case) centuries - & then they fall. Rome had already had a better "innings" than most, &in the fifth century its luck ran out.
It is usual to blame the Fall on the Empire's internal problems, & say that it became "decadent" or whatever. Heather, probably rightly, focuses more on what was happening outside Rome's borders. The Barbarian tribes, living for centuries with that 800 pound Roman "gorilla" next door, combined into larger units like the Frankish or Gothic kingdoms, which were a tougher proposition for Rome to cope with. Everlasting warfare with these states gradually wore the Empire down, & finally another barbarian, Attila, drove many tribes from their old homes & forced them to try their luck migrating into Roman territory. This proved more than Rome (or at least its western half) could cope with. So down the tubes it went.
No doubt, had Rome not fallen from this cause, it would eventually have fallen another way. Empires are usually longer lived than individuals, but are no more immortal. But Heather does a magnificent job of showing how & why it fell as & when it did.
One minor regret. Perhaps a little more "afterword" about post-Roman Europe might have beenin order. For the significant thing about the Roman Empire is not that it fell (which was bound to happen sometime) but that it was never rebuilt. By contrast, China fell to Mongol "barbarians"in the 13C, an invasion probably as devastating as anything Western Rome underwent, yet within a century had gotten its breath back, expelled the invaders, & installed a native Ming Dynasty. Similarly, Egypt was able to spit out the Hyksos & other intruders. Yet Rome's former subjects not only didn't do this, but (unless the Arthurian legends count) seem never to have even tried. Rather, they appear to have largely shrugged their shoulders & made the best of things under barbarian rule. While purely external factors can explain the fall itself, they can't explain this apparent acceptance of it. Even when Roman lands were "liberated" by Justinian, the inhabitants seldom rallied round, & when Byzantium's grip loosened they just flopped back into barbarian hands. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, however traumatic the Empire's fall had been, a lot of its subjects soon found they didn't really miss it all that much. This calls for explanation.
Still, that's quibbling. Heather has written a great book (even if his 21C idioms can irritate at times) & it needs to be read by anyone interestedin this subject.
I loved this - By: O. WOODWARD, 04 Jul 2007 To start off with I thought his language was irritatingly contemporary. I hate it when historians talk about "spin doctors". I read history to escape from, not to be reminded of, Alistair Campbell & co. However, I soon got over this because the book was telling me just the sort of thing I really wanted to know.
Some books take the stories from the ancient sources, put themin order & iron out the discrepancies, but give very little elaboration. I'm particularly thinking of the book I was previously reading, Byzantium: The Early Centuries by J. J. Norwich. This is okay as far as it goes,in fact it's quite readable, but it can get a bit boring. All the repeated usurpations, murders & civil wars don't seem to have much significance, & there are so many questions unanswered, along the lines of, "but what was it actually like? And how did that work?"
Heather covers a much shorter time-span so he has much more room for analysis & explanation. And at the end I really felt I'd learnt a lot. Why, I was wondering, if Attila was a nomad does he have such beautiful clothesin the picturesin Osprey books? (Whenever I go camping I become filthyin a couple of weeks!) Heather gives a reasonable explanation of the the Huns' lifestyle. And if you want to know who the Goths were, I recommend this book. He reminded me of the most enthusiastic lecturers at university - the ones I actually made an effort to get up for, which is another reason why I ended up liking his informal style.
The maps could be brushed up a bit though. On map 13 the towns on the Moselle look a bit wrong to me. And the text refers to several places which aren't marked, so you can't follow the story easily. It helps to have an atlas handy.
