Edward Gibbon and Empire

This book assesses Gibbon's Decline and Fall in the light of modern research.

Rosamond McKitterick (Edited by), Roland Quinault (Edited by)

9780521497244, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 November 1996

368 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.71 kg

'The essays in this handsome volume … are uniformly learned and polished …' Early Medieval Europe

This book examines Gibbon's interpretations of empire and the intellectual context in which he formulated them against a background of the eighteenth- and late twentieth-century knowledge of late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Gibbon's ideas of empire, his understanding of monarchy and the balance of power, his sources and working methods, the structure of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, his attitude towards the barbarians, the contrasting treatments of the eastern and western Empire, his appreciation of past civilizations and their material remains, his audience and their reactions - contemporary and Victorian - are considered in the light of the latest research on eighteenth-century intellectual history on the one hand and on late antiquity, Byzantium and the Middle Ages on the other. The book breaks new ground in taking the form of a dialogue between experts on the fields about which Gibbon himself wrote, and eighteenth-century intellectual historians.

Introduction Rosamond McKitterick and Roland Quinault
1. Gibbon and the later Roman Empire: causes and circumstances John Matthews
2. Gibbon and Justinian Averil Cameron
3. Gibbon and the middle period of the Byzantine Empire James Howard-Johnson
4. Byzantine soldiers, missionaries and diplomacy under Gibbon's eyes Jonathan Shepard
5. Gibbon and the later Byzantine empires Anthony Bryer
6. Gibbon and the Merovingians Ian Wood
7. Gibbon, Hodgkin, and the invaders of Italy T. S. Brown
8. Gibbon and the early Middle Ages in eighteenth-century Europe Rosamond McKitterick
9. Gibbon and the 'watchmen of the Holy City': religion and revision in The Decline and Fall David Womersley
10. Gibbon and international relations Jeremy Black
11. Gibbon's Roman Empire as a universal monarchy John Robertson
12. The conception of Gibbon's History Peter Ghosh
13. Winston Churchill and Gibbon Roland Quinault
Epilogue J. W. Burrow, Rosamond McKitterick and Roland Quinault.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]