

Born and brought up in Rome, he has excavated extensively in Italy, primarily sites of the immediately post-Roman period. Bryan Ward-Perkinss The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (2005) takes a traditional view tempered by modern discoveries, arguing that the empires. He also looks at how and why successive generations have understood this period differently, and why the story is still so significant today. Bryan Ward-Perkins teaches History at Trinity College, Oxford. In The Fall of Rome, eminent historian Bryan Ward-Perkins argues that the 'peaceful' theory of Romes 'transformation' is badly in error.

Attacking new sources with relish and making use of a range of contemporary archaeological evidence, he looks at both the wider explanations for the disintegration of the Roman world and also the consequences for the lives of everyday Romans, in a world of economic collapse, marauding barbarians,Īnd the rise of a new religious orthodoxy. Or did it? The dominant view of this period today is that the 'fall of Rome' was a largely peaceful transition to Germanic rule, and the start of a positive cultural transformation.īryan Ward-Perkins encourages every reader to think again by reclaiming the drama and violence of the last days of the Roman world, and reminding us of the very real horrors of barbarian occupation. In The Fall of Rome, eminent historian Bryan Ward-Perkins argues that the 'peaceful' theory of Romes 'transformation' is badly in error. who were caught in a world of marauding barbarians, and economic collapse. Vicious barbarian invasions during the fifth century resulted in the cataclysmic end of the world's most powerful civilization, and a 'dark age' for its conquered peoples. In The Fall of Rome, eminent historian Bryan Ward-Perkins argues that the. Ward-Perkins, an archaeologist, renewed the case for the barbarian invasions as the major cause of Romes fall in his The Fall of Rome: And the End.
