The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Pt. 1 (Classic Non-fiction)

My main gripe and the reason for the lack of stars is that this version is SO heavily abridged. I picked up this book in the hope of learning not just political history but military history. All details of all battles that Gibbon apparently detailed so painstakingly have been removed. There are numerous other abridgments that have been made (footnotes and gorgraphic details) that I'm sure also speed up the prose but if you are looking for the definitive Gibbon you will not find it here.

I understand the reasons for it as explained in the foreword but the detail that has been removed needs to be highlighted in Amazon's own review because this book despite it's quality as a historical political document has been a disappointment to me.


Don't doubt or delay - this is well worth buying!   May 10, 2004
 9 out of 10 found this review helpful

I thought long and hard about buying these tapes before taking the plunge. I thought the 18th century prose would be tough enough to read, let alone to listen to while walking (my usual pastime while hearing audio books). And Roman history was never my favourite period. But they are just fabulous. Gibbon's prose is truly superb, and his iconoclastic view of the role of Christianity and his dry sense of humour about the key players in this story entertains as well as informs. I can't judge if there are errors as pointed out by another reviewer but I learnt a lot and thought the abridgement was well done. So now I've no hesitation in getting Vol. II!


full description of the personalities of the roman empire   February 18, 2002
 22 out of 26 found this review helpful

I originally tried to read the book, but found the vocabulary a little dated. A friend recommended the tapes, and i have'nt been disappointed with the tip.
The narrators and the choice of music add to the feeling of unfolding history and drama.
Gibbon describes the Roman Empire from start to finish, giving his own opinions on the merits and character of each emperor.He does not pander to political correctness and has some sobering thoughts on the growth of Christianity and the early Church.He also recounts the difficult relationship between the Romans and the barbarians, especially the Goths.It is the latter two mentioned above that he blames for the eventual fall of the once mighty empire.
For anyone who wishes to know about the Roman Empire and wishes to be entertained at the same time, I recommend these tapes.


Gibbon's genius is always worth listening to...   July 21, 2000
 32 out of 35 found this review helpful

I have listened to this production several times. Gibbon was a great entertainer as well as a great historian and I would recommend these excerpts to anyone with a strong interest in the rise of the medieval Europe, but those who are not historians need to be aware that there are failings both in Gibbon and in the Naxos production which spoil this recording.

First Gibbon. Leaving aside the ways in which scholarship has moved on since the eighteenth century, it has always been recognized that Gibbon's later volumes -- those that deal with the Byzantines and the period after the fall of the Empire in the west in 476 -- are much weaker than his earlier volumes. There are times when Gibbon is grossly unfair to the Byzantines; times when he exaggerates the strengths of an emperor (e.g. his words of praise for the failure emperor Manuel Comnenus in this recording); times when he is pretty silly -- e.g. suggesting that Constantine VI was poisoned by the wife of his son Romanus II or in his prurient but pointless interest in the love affairs of the wife of Belisarius; times when he strays a very long way from his main subject e.g. by writing about the Tartars and the Mongols and just seems to be writing about what takes his fancy.

Naxos has frankly done a very bad job indeed of editing these excerpts. Whoever wrote the linkage simply does not know the elementary facts of Byzantine history and so slips into some crude blunders, e.g. when the linkage text suggests that the Greek church is different from the Crusaders because it rejects the Trinity. This is simply ignorance. The same thing shows through in the pronunciation of many names, and even less excusably some basic words. "The decent obscurity of a learned language" for example is read as "The decent obscurity of a learnt language" which is simply meaningless.

The main thrust of these volumes should be the cahnging fortunes and achievements of the eastern empire but the crucial high Byzantine centuries from 800 to 1071 are largely ignored and the impression is given that Basil II, by far the most powerful mid-Byzantine Emperor, was a little known non-entity. OK the sources for Basil II are weak but Gibbon has a good chapter on Romanus Lecapenus, another tenth century emperor, but it does not make this recording. Instead we get scandal, Mongols, and a great deal of irrelevancy. Surely Naxos could have checked their selection and their commentary with a reputable historian of the Byzantine Empire? I would urge them to try again. Gibbon deserves it and despite all these failings, I can promise that anyone who listens to these CDs will enjoy the experience. But it could easily have been so much better.