The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather
PETER HEATHER is a leading academic authority and historian on the Roman Empire and the author of The Fall of the Roman Empire. He is a professor of Ancient and Medieval History at King’s College London.
ABOUT THE BOOK: The death of the Roman Empire is one of the perennial mysteries of world history. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Peter Heather proposes a stunning new solution: Centuries of imperialism turned the neighbors Rome called barbarians into an enemy capable of dismantling an Empire that had
dominated their lives for so long.
A leading authority on the late Roman Empire and on the barbarians, Heather relates the extraordinary story of how Europe’s barbarians, transformed by centuries of contact with Rome on every possible level, eventually pulled the empire apart. He shows first how the Huns overturned the existing
strategic balance of power on Rome’s European frontiers, to force the Goths and others to seek refuge inside the Empire.
This prompted two generations of struggle, during which new barbarian coalitions, formed in response to Roman hostility, brought the Roman west to its knees. The Goths first destroyed a Roman army at the battle of Hadrianople in 378, and went on to sack Rome in 410. The Vandals spread devastation in Gaul and Spain, before conquering North Africa, the breadbasket of the Western Empire, in 439.
We then meet Attila the Hun, whose reign of terror swept from Constantinople to Paris, but whose death in 453 ironically precipitated a final desperate phase of Roman collapse, culminating in the Vandals’ defeat of the massive Byzantine Armada: the west’s last chance for survival.
ADAM DUNN is the author of the novels Rivers of Gold, The Big Dogs, and Saint Underground, the forthcoming novel The Unfathomable Deep, and co-writer (with Eric Anderson) of the forthcoming novel Osiris. He spent years as a freelance writer cultivating networks among the military, intelligence, law enforcement, and financial communities. His byline has appeared in 18 publications in 4 countries. Including CNN and BBC News (online); Inc., Paper, SOMA, and Publishers Weekly magazines (glossy); and the San Francisco Chronicle and South China Morning Post (newsprint). He and his family have left New York City.
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