The Fall Of The Roman Empire Peter Heather

The Fall of the Roman Empire is a retelling of the last centuries of Roman collapse in which the author, Peter Heather, put his expertise on ancient Rome and its barbarian neighbors to good use. In this book, Heather sought to reconnect disjointed scholarly analyses which, for years, have been focused on specific aspects of the collapse of the Roman Empire into one broad story.
Written in casual and easily-understood language, this book rarely sounds like a stereotypical history textbook. Heather’s work aptly fulfils his stated goal of transforming dry renditions of history into a detective story in which the reader is invited to fully engage with the evidence and come to his or her own conclusions. Full of fascinating particulars, well thought-out arguments, and a distinct lack of judgment, this book serves the dual purpose of conveying historical information and eliciting reader involvement admirably well.
Historical detail mixed with careful storytelling seems to have been the general tactic Heather chose to employ in this book, never allowing it to devolve into a simple list of who/what/when.
The book’s first chapter opens with a dramatic retelling of the ambush and slaughter of a Roman legion after they had been betrayed by a pair of barbarian kings, something which was exceedingly rare historically and which served as an excellent shock to bring the reader’s attention to focus. This tactic works well, and Heather employed it at several junctures throughout the book to bring a sense of drama and realism to his tale.
The first part of the book, “Pax Romana,” sets the stage upon which the drama of the collapse will take place. It contains chapters introducing the major players, Rome and its barbarian neighbors, and a chapter which points out the weaknesses of the Empire which left it vulnerable to
trouble.
The second part of the book, “Crisis,” lays out a disastrous series of events from which Rome was unable to recover. It discusses the influx of Germanic refugees seeking shelter at the Empires’ border and Rome’s first major military defeat, major tensions between the Eastern and Western empires, a cycle of invasions and losses of territory which led to drastic reduction in tax revenues, Rome’s growing inability to pay for its army, and the devastating financial impact of losing North Africa. It then goes on to introduce Attila the Hun, pointing out that the long-term consequences of his actions was that it took so much effort to counter him that other threats to the Empire’s integrity had to be overlooked, leading to even more reduction in available funds.
The book concludes with the third part, “Fall of Empires.” This section details the rapid disintegration of the Hunnic Empire after Attila’s death. It also documents the downward spiral experienced in the Western Roman Empire culminating in the failed attempt to retake North Africa, and discusses the fragmenting of its territories into new barbarian kingdoms. It shares how the last Western Emperor gave control of the whole Empire to his Eastern counterpart, signaling the official end of Rome’s power in the West, and then talks about some of the ways culture began shifting throughout the region.
One of the few critiques I had while reading Heather’s work was his tendency to use language in ways which are sometimes too casual. Refraining from stiff academic language is necessary when attempting to bring knowledge of history into the broader sphere of public knowledge, but Heather occasionally took it too far. Overall, however, I believe that this book is an excellent tool to convey historical knowledge to lay audiences. Through a careful interrogation of historical sources, Heather has produced a gripping account of the fall of the Roman Empire which would be useful for professors of any undergraduate history course discussing the topic.