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The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Written by: Edward Gibbon
Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
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Here in a single volume is the entire, unabridged recording of Gibbon's masterpiece. Beginning in the second century at the apex of the Pax Romana, Gibbon traces the arc of decline and complete destruction through the centuries across Europe and the Mediterranean. It is a thrilling and cautionary tale of splendor and ruin, of faith and hubris, and of civilization and barbarism. Follow along as Christianity overcomes paganism... before itself coming under intense pressure from Islam. It is a story that begins in Rome and ends in the capture of Constantinople by the Turks almost 1,500 years later. To aid in navigating this massive work, please refer to the accompanying PDF, which contains a table of contents and starting times for each chapter.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

Public Domain (P)2015 Audio Connoisseur Ancient Rome World Middle Ages Italy Crusade
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Doesn't go into detail as much as I'd like, but it's long enough as is

Long, good narration, excellent subject

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Written in an incredibly rich late 18h century style, it becomes intriguing and insightful as delightful. Truly a pilar of modern English historiography. This generation of writers like the author or Adam Smith reshaped thinking and allowed the next generations to reach the height of the British empire and kickstart industrialism. A great source of classical and medieval history.

One of the last magnificent gifts of the Renaissan

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This is an incredible work and well worth the listen if you are interested, but with the caveat that this work can be quite difficult to digest in the audio format if you are really trying to absorb every detail. Very often there will be instances where the author only directly says the persons name they are referring to once at the start of a long section and may go for what seems like 10-15 minutes referring to ‘him’ or other pronouns instead of repeating the full name. If you are not fully focused on the recording it can be very easy to lose track of who is being referred to.

Overall, this is a fantastic work to provide you with a survey of a very long span of history that I haven’t previously heard covered in much detail. I did not expect this work to cover so much ground, such as the persian empire, the rise of islam, the mongol invasions, etc.

Great but challenging audiobook

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I survived! Very interesting listen all the way through! It only took me a year and a half!

It almost killed me!

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As an Audio Engineer/Music Producer/Music History Nerd...I really enjoyed that as Gibbon moves through history, the music accompanying each chapter changes to match the time period (e.g. Classical Antiquity Roman Marching Drums; Latin Papal Chants; Eastern Roman Greek Chants; Medieval Lutes)

Of course, Charlton Griffin’s narration is excellent. He was classically trained to speak with Gravitas, Theatre/Radio Tools of Emphasis (see Pat Fraley’s free teachings on Voice Over on “The Eight Means of Emphasis” on SoundCloud.

Gibbon’s work, despite his disdain for the Eastern Romans (Check out “Lost to the West” or “Empire of God” for more accurate and less bias against the so-called “Byzantines”) and some historical inaccuracies is still filled with helpful commentary on the reasons Empires Fall (check out “Fall of Empires”; all three of my suggestions are exquisite and are available on Audible), and also Gibbon’s lengthy prose is an excellent demonstration in the potential beauty and rhetoric possible in the English Language.

Roma Invicta!

🏛️

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