Gibbon offers an explanation for why the Roman Empire fell, a task made difficult by a lack of comprehensive written sources, though he was not the only historian to tackle the subject. Most of his ideas are directly taken from what few relevant records were available: those of the Roman moralists of the 4th and 5th centuries.

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About the Author

EDWARD GIBBON (1737-1794), an English historian and Member of Parliament, had little formal education. He went to Oxford, but was forced to leave when he converted to Roman Catholicism. His family then sent him to Lausanne, where he was reconverted to Protestantism. His most important work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788.