Claim: The Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire was started by Edward Gibbon’s six-volume book in 1776, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which covers the height of the Roman Empire to the fall of Byzantium.
Evidence: The causes and mechanisms of the fall of the Western Roman Empire are a historical theme that was introduced by historian Edward Gibbon in his 1776 book The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a six-volume work by the English historian Edward Gibbon. It traces Western civilization (as well as the Islamic and Mongolian conquests) from the height of the Roman Empire to the fall of Byzantium.