'History, in essence, is little more than a catalogue of the crimes, follies, and miseries of the human race,' wrote the British historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) in his major work, a massive essay on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. In this innovative and, at the same time, provocative for its time book, the author traces the processes that took place in the Roman state and society, from the heyday of the Empire to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, which marked its end. Despite a long and heated controversy over Gibbon's 'anti-religious' views on the origin and spread of Christianity, his work remains one of the classic texts for the study of this period in Western universities.
The first book of this edition includes chapters covering the events from the reign of the Antonines to the reign of Julian the Apostate. The text is printed with minor abbreviations.