Alexandru's Reviews > The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization

The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation is an excellent refutation of the modern historical trend which denies the existence of the Dark Ages.

Ever since the 70s-80s some historians have been claiming that there was no real fall of Rome, they are using the term 'transformation' and presenting the barbarian invasions as peaceful migrations and settlements. While some of these migrations were indeed peaceful, many of these barbarians actually serving in the Roman army there is a mountain of evidence to show that there was indeed a civilisational collapse.

The author touches on several areas to prove his thesis:

- the level of economic activity dropped as evidenced by a decrease in the number of amphorae and other trade goods discovered during the period after the fall of Rome
- the sophistication of society also dropped as evidenced by the quality of the household goods. Pottery is a large part of the book and the author explains that there is a marked decrease in the sophistication and quality of pottery sherds found. It seems that pottery techniques were also forgotten after the fall of Rome.
- the number of inscriptions and writing overall had a huge decrease after the fall of Rome, in the next centuries fewer and fewer writings are found and it is believed in some places such as Britain writing was completely forgotten. By comparison during the Roman times even some lower class people could read and write.
- the size of cities and buildings decreased. New churches built in the centuries after the fall of Rome were small and dwarfed by their Roman counterparts. Roof tiles which were an important part of Roman city building almost disappeared due to the loss of the manufacturing centres.
- the quality of buildings and the building materials dropped. For example the windows became smaller and stained glass a lot simpler.
- even the size of the animals such as cattle experienced a marked drop. The author actually presents the different sizes of cow bones found which show that the cows became a lot smaller after the fall of Rome due to the loss of good quality grazing grounds and proper maintenance. The Romans invested a lot of time and effort in livestock growth which was simply no longer possible afterwards.

The effects of the fall of Rome were so serious that some areas actually reached a level of development lower than even prior to the period when Rome conquered them. It took several centuries to even reach pre-Roman levels of development as evidenced by archaeology and existing records.

This book was quite tedious in some parts due to the focus on archaeology, pottery and tiles. However, it is a welcome counter to the modern historical trends and well worth the read for anyone interested in late antiquity and early medieval period.