The Fall of Rome, and the End of Civilization
Context with Brad Harris
English - December 12, 2018 20:53 - 52 minutes - 77.7 MB - ★★★★★ - 440 ratingsHistory Education history Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Previous Episode: The Two Cultures, by C. P. Snow
Next Episode: Why the West Rules - For Now, by Ian Morris
Today, I’m speaking with Bryan Ward-Perkins, author of The Fall of Rome, and the End of Civilization.
It has become fashionable to argue that Roman civilization never collapsed, but was merely transformed by Germanic culture. Although this counter-narrative can illuminate intellectual developments of Late Antiquity, it verges on cultural relativism that threatens to obscure real differences in how people flourish or suffer. Ward-Perkins' book is a welcome reality check of how dark the post-Roman age really was.
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