Awful Revolution: The Decline of the Roman Empire in the West

by Frank William Walbank

Diust jacket worn and torn, bookseller's marks, some notes and underlining. Shipped from the U.K. All orders received before 3pm sent that weekday.

Genres: History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Frank William Walbank CBE was a scholar of ancient history, particularly the history of Polybius. He was born in Bingley, Yorkshire, and died in Cambridge. Walbank attended Bradford Grammar School and went on to study Classics at Peterhouse, Cambridge.

Reviews

[Andreas Hallenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skriven på ett pedagogiskt och lättförståeligt sätt. Ger en god överskådlig förståelse för hur romarriket utvecklades och förändrades under dess levnadstid.

[Avempace · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The Awful Revolution (a title adopted from Gibbon), Frank William Walbank, a most distinguished historian of the rise of Roman Empire to dominance, has penned a masterful treaty on the causes of its decline and fall. The traditional view on the subject has been up to that time (and continues to be in the popular imagination) a combination of debauchery within and barbarians without. Walbank was amongst the first to probe the social-economic aspect of the decline, grounding it firmly in a latent weakness of an agrarian economy based on slavery that was unable to invent decisively new means of production. This weakness, common to both Rome and its Hellenistic city states predecessors, severely limited the efficiency of production and the dissemination of products across the empire. It forced further addiction to slaved labor, and ultimately undermined the capacity of production to sustain the cost of Empire maintenance. His Roman government was one that has become desperate to keep the stagnant economic life of an ever more turbulent Empire from imploding, in the process coming to control and militarize all aspects of its life. This effort was eventually dead-ended as it could not be sustained on ever dwindling resources, hence the legitimacy of government eventually ran out. This is different and more nuanced view than one would encounter with other investigators of the subject, and many of its insights were startling to this reader. Walbank's background in left wing politics and his abiding interest in social justice well inform his analysis. The Awful Revolution was written on the eve of the dismantling of the British Empire, and its analysis has echoes with contemporaneous events that buffeted its publication. Walbank was one of the great 20th century historians of Rome. He is known for his three-volume Historical Commentary on Polybius, the Greek historian of the rise of Rome, a work that I am very much looking forward to dive into. Most highly recommended.