Talk:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

message: My copy of this book is called The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire -- without the words "The history of". That's what it says on the frontspiece. Did the name of this book change since Gibbon first published it? -- llywrch 20:54, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: I have a copy of vol. 1 of the first edition on my desk at this moment. The title is "The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire". -- Wilus 06:55, October 21, 2004
I have three copies of this work and none of them are entitled "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."  The all omit "The History of..."  This clearly needs to be changed since its indisputably an error.
PainMan 11:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, there have been lots of editions made since the first edition, which was called "The History of.." - it's not uncommon for later publishers to change titles (among other things).  -- Stbalbach 13:37, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correct title? 

message: regarding this paragraph:
:The work is considered the first "Modern" history because it seeks explanations for historical events in terms of society, culture, and government rather than a Divine plan. Previous Christian authors almost always explained events in religious terms, and did not seek "worldly" explanations. Gibbon, however, approached his work from a point of skepticism, and wrote a very different kind of history.
This seems strange. Humanists like Petrarch in the 14th Century rejected history on religious terms and returned to the classics of Rome. It was, by definition, the Renaissance. Gibbon was part of the Enlightenment which also rejected history on religious terms. So to call it the "first" history to see things along social advancement.. it's a debateable point. But I don't have an earlier work to point to as example so will leave it for now. Stbalbach 19:25, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  A debateable point 

message: SOMEONE keeps adding that EXCERPTS back into this page without any discussion. Please discuss first. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Alisonsage (talk • contribs) 20:08, January 10, 2005  (UTC)
Will someone please cite the wikipedia policy which requires "dicussion" before editing?  If that were the case, then nothing would ever get changed, let alone corrected (such as the incorrect title given to the book by this article).
PainMan 11:24, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:AVOIDEDITWAR. Once it is clear there is a dispute, editors are encouraged to discuss the matter on the associated talk page and settle the dispute in the open so that contentious topics don't enter a never-ending edit loop between two people who aren't communicating. john factorial (talk) 17:07, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please discuss excerpts 

message: Some of the sentences in the article are taken verbatim from the Teaching Company's lecture on the early Middle Ages. Whoever put them in might want to reword a bit. --Ian 19:48, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Teaching Company

message: This passage is unclear: Gibbon extrapolated that the number of Christians executed by other Christian factions far exceeded all the Christian martyrs who died during the three centuries of Christianity under Roman rule. Does it mean that it is comparing the [Christians killed by Christians to the Christians killed by Romans] during the three centuries of Roman rule? Or does it mean that it compares Christians killed by Christians from 30 through 1590 CE either to all Christians killed under Roman rule (some Christians were martyred by other Christians), or to just Christians killed by Romans during Roman rule?  Please rephrase for precision. --Blainster 23:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Christians executed

message: Thanks for this article. Great job on making it so helpful.  
I was thinking, Gibbons Theory should have its own article on wikipedia. The current section on it is good but i think there is much more information on his theory to be added. Thank You! 216.174.135.50 18:03, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Complements/Idea 

message: Should the Decline and Fall be available on Wikisource? Indeed123 17:46, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikisource 

message: I came to this article because I was curious how long it took Gibbon to write The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  The article provided that information very well, thank you.
However, I was appalled at the vast oversimplification of Gibbon's theory about the fall of the Roman Empire.  This article needs to be reworked by someone who knows more than the original writer.  Unfortunately, I am not that person; I know enough however to recognize that Gibbon's work has been distorted here by oversimplification. 4.155.99.137 04:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Specific commentaries welcome. Of course, this is an encyclopedia, summaries often do make things more simple than the complexity of the original work allows. I don't think it misrepresents what he was saying, these are commonly known points he made. -- Stbalbach 16:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oversimplification 

message: I'm not a professional historian, but from what I see the article as presently written is insufficiently criticial of how Gibbon holds up in the light of modern understanding of the Roman, and especially Byzantine, worlds.  For instance, the piece makes it seem as though the only effective criticism of Gibbon in this regard lies in the area of his theorizing about why the Roman (and Byzantine) empires fell; and though it mentions J.B. (John Bagnell) Bury, it doesn't suggest that he -- in addition to John Julius Norwich -- was also a considerable critic of much of Gibbon's work.
As I say, I'm not a historian, and I admit I haven't read Bury's annotated edition of Gibbon's book, but let me point to a couple of things that make me believe that this is true.  First, in the Bibliography to Vol. IV (the Eastern Roman Empire) of the original edition of the Cambridge Medieval History (the entire set of which was planned by J.B. Bury, though that volume was edited by others), concerning Gibbon's Decline and Fall it states -- and notice the note at the end:
:Gibbon, Edward.    The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.    1776-81.    Ed. in 7 vols. by Bury, J. B.    1896.    Latest edn. 1909 ff.    (Bury-Gibbon.)    [Notes essential especially for chronology.]
Second, in J.B. Bury's Introduction to the aforementioned Vol. IV of the Cambridge Medieval History, he writes:
:In the period in which the Empire was strong, before it lost the provinces which provided its best recruits, its army was beyond comparison the best fighting machine in Europe.  When a Byzantine army was defeated, it was always the incompetence of the general or some indiscretion on his part, never inefficiency or cowardice of the troops, that was to blame.  The great disaster of Manzikert (1071), from which perhaps the decline of the Eastern Empire may be dated, was caused by the imbecility of the brave Emperor who was in command.  A distinguished student of the art of war has observed that Gibbon's dictum, "the vices of Byzantine armies were inherent, their victories accidental," is precisely the reverse of the truth.  He is perfectly right.
Given that kind of profound mistake on Gibbon's part, it would seem that -- as the C.M.H. Bibliography states -- "notes [are] essential" before taking much in the way of Gibbon's conclusions as gospel.
Michael McNeil 17:10, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scholarly criticism of Gibbon's Decline and Fall 

message: There are quite a few "Fall of Rome" games, some of them multiplayer, some of them solitaire, most of them with hexagons, but some of them with really big areas you put pieces or tokens in.   Probably more than a dozen games in the last 35 years.   Maybe even more.   The one I am looking for, was never marketed in the US, it was marketed in England in 1976 or 1977.  The game was reviewed in the UK-based "Game Magazine" (not gamer magazine) and there is British spelling all the way throughout.  The Mongol Hordes keep pressing at the empire, and sooner or later break through, no matter how you try to build up your border.   When you search for The Fall of Rome, you get redirected to this page, even though you are interested in the game by that name.   I am not sure how to fix a redirect, but somebody here probably knows how to do it.   The search engine in Wikipedia would work a lot better if the redirect were changed into a disambiguation page.  The Fall of Rome is not the same thing as the History of the Fall of Rome.   Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 05:02, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguation page needed

message: I came to this article because I was curious how long it took Gibbon to write The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  The article provided that information very well, thank you.
However, I was appalled at the vast oversimplification of Gibbon's theory about the fall of the Roman Empire.  This article needs to be reworked by someone who knows more than the original writer.  Unfortunately, I am not that person; I know enough however to recognize that Gibbon's work has been distorted here by oversimplification. 4.155.99.137 04:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Specific commentaries welcome. Of course, this is an encyclopedia, summaries often do make things more simple than the complexity of the original work allows. I don't think it misrepresents what he was saying, these are commonly known points he made. -- Stbalbach 16:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oversimplification 

message: I'm not a professional historian, but from what I see the article as presently written is insufficiently criticial of how Gibbon holds up in the light of modern understanding of the Roman, and especially Byzantine, worlds.  For instance, the piece makes it seem as though the only effective criticism of Gibbon in this regard lies in the area of his theorizing about why the Roman (and Byzantine) empires fell; and though it mentions J.B. (John Bagnell) Bury, it doesn't suggest that he -- in addition to John Julius Norwich -- was also a considerable critic of much of Gibbon's work.
As I say, I'm not a historian, and I admit I haven't read Bury's annotated edition of Gibbon's book, but let me point to a couple of things that make me believe that this is true.  First, in the Bibliography to Vol. IV (the Eastern Roman Empire) of the original edition of the Cambridge Medieval History (the entire set of which was planned by J.B. Bury, though that volume was edited by others), concerning Gibbon's Decline and Fall it states -- and notice the note at the end:
:Gibbon, Edward.    The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.    1776-81.    Ed. in 7 vols. by Bury, J. B.    1896.    Latest edn. 1909 ff.    (Bury-Gibbon.)    [Notes essential especially for chronology.]
Second, in J.B. Bury's Introduction to the aforementioned Vol. IV of the Cambridge Medieval History, he writes:
:In the period in which the Empire was strong, before it lost the provinces which provided its best recruits, its army was beyond comparison the best fighting machine in Europe.  When a Byzantine army was defeated, it was always the incompetence of the general or some indiscretion on his part, never inefficiency or cowardice of the troops, that was to blame.  The great disaster of Manzikert (1071), from which perhaps the decline of the Eastern Empire may be dated, was caused by the imbecility of the brave Emperor who was in command.  A distinguished student of the art of war has observed that Gibbon's dictum, "the vices of Byzantine armies were inherent, their victories accidental," is precisely the reverse of the truth.  He is perfectly right.
Given that kind of profound mistake on Gibbon's part, it would seem that -- as the C.M.H. Bibliography states -- "notes [are] essential" before taking much in the way of Gibbon's conclusions as gospel.
Michael McNeil 17:10, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, I added the criticism part and any additions would be helpful. Gibbon's views, as the article states, are not widely accepted, though Christianity was culturally inhibitive in some particular cultural areas (the Iconoclastic controversy and the decline of sculpture for example), I don't think I've read a single modern Historian who agrees with Gibbon's conclusions about the fall, in my opinion Gibbon is sometimes purposefully vague so as to detract from any ability to properly critique them, I mean, if the view you are rebutting has no easily definable assertions then it becomes difficult to construct counter-arguments.--NeroDrusus 17:10, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One thing I find odd about the section as it currently stands is that it starts with two lengthy quotes from Gibbon without any context for why they're being introduced, or what they have to do with the 'criticism' section heading. --Delirium (talk) 02:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scholarly criticism of Gibbon's Decline and Fall 

message: Today I read first sentence of "Criticism of Quran and Muhammad". The footnote 15 is referring to my research work "Rashid Iqbal, (2017). “A New Theory on Aṣḥāb al-kahf (The Sleepers of the Cave) Based on Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS)”. Al-Bayān – Journal of Qurʾān and ḤadĪth Studies 15 (2017)". The first sentence doesn't convey the essence of the referred work. In my research work, I only referred to Gibbon's statement. My complete research paper is a scholarly rebuttal of this criticism for which I was invited to The Oxford University, UK as well. I concluded in research paper, ""Gibbon grossly erred in accusing the Qurʾān and the prophet Muḥammad of fabricating Christian tradition. The discovery of DSS reveals undeniable internal, external and circumstantial evidences of “Five-Pronged Juxtaposing”, which, once cross-examined with Kor 18, 9-26, give an entirely different perspective with respect to this particular tradition about which Gibbon is self-assured and egotistical". I would request the supervisor of this article to kindly make the following correction in the first sentence as deemed necessary as the sentence is opposite to the essence of the referred footnote."Gibbon's comments on the Quran and Muhammad reflected his view of the secular, rather than divine, origin of the text. His criticism outlined in chapter 33 the widespread tale, possibly Jewish in origin, of the Seven Sleepers, has been repudiated in the latest researchRashid Iqbal, (2017). “A New Theory on Aṣḥāb al-kahf (The Sleepers of the Cave) Based on Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS)”. Al-Bayān – Journal of Qurʾān and ḤadĪth Studies 15 (2017). doi:10.1163/22321969-12340044. pp. 20–47. Retrieved from http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/22321969-12340044#".  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rashid37009 (talk • contribs) 06:40, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: It is my understanding that WikiPedia is generally not intended for 'own research', which is what your publication is. It also has the appearance of polemical exegesis. And the DOI does not resolve. Maybe it has no place here? Rvosa (talk) 21:38, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism of Quran and Muhammad 

message: shouldn't there be a link to the complete online edition at www.ccel.org?
Homun 13:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  link to complete edition? 

message: A section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please list the specific points to clean up in bullet format. J. D. Redding 21:56, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "Historians such as David S. Potter and Fergus Millar dispute claims that the Empire fell as a result of a kind of lethargy towards current affairs brought on by Constantine's adoption of Christianity as the official state religion." That part ive highlighted is just bullshit, Constantine adopted it personally but it was Theodosius I that made the religion the official religion of the empire. Terrasidius (talk) 10:35, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: section may require cleanup? 

message: Should Asimov's Foundation Saga be included? Although this section seems to focus on academic work, I believe this would be a worthy addition.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.64.52.56 (talk) 02:59, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legacy 

message: * I linked "civic virtue" to Machiavelli's concept of virtu, though my descriptor explanation was inadvertently saved as "to Machiavelli" before I could complete it. --RayBirks (talk) 22:36, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Machiavelli's Virtu 

message: One might argue that Asimov's doggerel does not need to be in this article at all (though I am fond of it, FWIW).  Given that it is in here, however, it is appropriate to point out to the reader that it understates the connection to Gibbons.
If anyone wishes to remove that point (or the entire quote), please explain the reasoning for doing so, at least. Jmacwiki (talk) 04:28, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Asimov quote 

message: D. M. Low did an abridged version in 1960. It's a big red book. It's sitting in my lap, if that helps anyone.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.69.98.153 (talk) 05:00, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: In cases like this, the ISBN number would probably be the most helpful.  In works published prior to implementation of ISBN, listing the author's full name, publisher (including country), publication-date and date of original copyright (if applicable) would work best. --Xaliqen (talk) 00:11, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abridged Version 

message: Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://web.me.com/wkirkpatrick13/DeclineandFallResources/Gibbon.html. Infringing material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you.  Dpmuk (talk) 06:51, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright problem removed 

message: The section "Number of Christian martyrs" is inadequate in two ways: first, it cites no sources; second, it says that  Christian sources are not primary sources! Of course, Christian sources can be just as primary as any others. Gibbon rejected certain writings because he regarded them as exaggerated, "partial" (i.e. partisan, biased), or too far in time from the events they describe. If this section is to be kept, a reliable authority is needed that explains why Gibbon accepted certain sources, rejected others, and arrived at his final numbers; I don't have access to such an authority at the moment. Wgrommel (talk) 19:34, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of Christian martyrs 

message: Seems a bit odd to stick Waugh's novel on the end as an afterthought following Legacy?  Surely rather than separate Waugh's book from this section as a floating link, it should just state at the end of the Legacy section something along the lines that Gibbon's title has become a cultural touchstone, as seen, for example, in the title of Waugh's novel..., along with a couple of other examples?  Cpaaoi (talk) 00:29, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name legacy 

message: From 28:02: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC8JcWVRFp8
And here just to summarize what the academia thinks:
" MYTH NO. 5
The empire collapsed because of Christianity.
In his monumental study “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” Edward Gibbon famously proposed that Christianity sparked a decrease in civic duty and a corresponding unwillingness to sacrifice for the empire in its period of greatest stress, ultimately leading (along with barbarian invasions) to its collapse. Because of the widespread acclamation accorded to it, both at the time and by later generations, Gibbon’s work has had unusual longevity.
But no modern scholar believes Gibbon’s thesis, if only for the simple fact that a Christian Roman Empire in the east survived the Germanic migration and lived on as the Byzantine Empire for nearly another millennium."
From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-decline-and-fall-of-rome/2016/12/02/1c06ee5a-b682-11e6-a677-b608fbb3aaf6_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2a2b5021f031
So, why are you deleting the text? En historiker (talk) 15:37, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Who wants to watch a 40 minute video to verify a sentence? The speaker, Paul Freedman "specializes in medieval social history, the history of Spain, the study of medieval peasantry, and medieval cuisine." That is not ancient Roman history. And the way you summarize it "Edward Gibbon's central thesis, that Rome fell due to embracing Christianity, is no longer accepted in academia today" doesn't seem to be what the professor says. Your quote makes it sound like there was a time when academia accepted his "central thesis" but it doesn't any more. Gibbon's book caused outrage when it was new and his radical thesis never was accepted by the mainstream, then or now.Smeat75 (talk) 15:50, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

text: His theory was accepted for a some time, but no longer today- that isn't what that quote you supply from the youtube vid says. It says there was "widespread acclamation" for the work but not specifically the "central thesis" that Rome fell due to embracing Christianity. The professor says "no modern scholar" believes that but they didn't believe it then either. Anyway, someone else has now removed the quote.Smeat75 (talk) 16:12, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is not so much Youtube as a source. If this video were by a leading academic in the field, giving a consensus version of what Gibbon's "central thesis" was, and its later reception, that would strike me as acceptable. In fact it's by an academic whose field is some distance from the historiography of the later Roman Empire, and you would need to quote a consensus of relevant academics, not just one. In the meantime we might be better off with Gibbon's own formulation: 
 Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:23, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

text: As I say, a consensus of modern historians in the field is what you need to document. It would probably help if your text is compatible with what Gibbon himself says. I'm well aware that to some Christians, Gibbon's reassessment of Christianity in relation to the Fall is more or less the only thesis that they are interested in, but scandalized Christians are not a modern consensus. Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:35, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

text: Pilkington presents a bumbling attack on some half-understood and half-relevant ideas; he may possibly be a historian but he's producing bad journalism here. Your Yale prof does say that Gibbon offered Christianity as the cause of the Fall. I'm sorry to say that a remark in an introductory course by someone whose interests lie elsewhere - his latest book is "Ten Restaurants That Changed America", not really relevant to this article - really does not qualify as even a hint of an actual academic consensus. As for Gibbon, he's provided his own clear formulation of the Fall, in which some of the effects of Christianity may feature. But he had more sense than to argue for one single cause. Richard Keatinge (talk) 20:44, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

text: The book that this article is about is rather long, you know, and there is more than one idea in it so you cannot really flatly declare that Gibbon has been "refuted" by academia. At least not without better sources than you are presenting. WP proceeds by consensus and since I agree with what Richard Keatinge has said  I hope you can see that there is no consensus for the addition to the article you are proposing.Smeat75 (talk) 15:49, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

text: Best of luck. Just to make it clear, you may want to provide evidence that:
1) There is a modern academic consensus that Gibbon's central thesis in "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" was that Christianity was the cause of the Fall. (As far as I know there is no such consensus, and Gibbon's central argument is best summarized in his own words, above.) 
2) The relevant academic community no longer agrees with Gibbon on this "central thesis". (I doubt that this thesis was ever "central". I am aware of ongoing debate on the degree to which the adoption of Christianity contributed to the Fall, or didn't. At least some secular historians agree that the process of adopting Christianity may have been a contributing factor, and I guess that the consensus is fairly similar to Gibbon's actual position.) 
To help a little, you don't need to provide evidence that Gibbon is no longer a leader in current academia; he is still admired and quoted, but any substantive positions need a basis in more modern discourse. Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:22, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Youtube as a source 

message: I hope that this edit solves that problem. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:50, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second paragraph of Thesis section contains too many seemingly subject opinions =

message: OK,this helps. So, you assert: "Gibbon’s theory that Christianity contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire has been (utterly) refuted by the academia."
Gibbon did indeed feel that Christianity "had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire". His own words demonstrate that, and I paste in a longer quotation for context:
So far we may possibly agree. I'd take out the word "theory" from your assertion, a theory has a higher intellectual status than a mere suggestion of relevance, but that's a detail. We have also established, I hope, that brief comments in a piece of hack journalism and in an introduction-to-history lecture, from historians in different fields, are not suitable sources for Wikipedia. That leaves us with the assertion (I rephrase slightly) that modern academic historians in this field have achieved a consensus that Christianity had no effect whatever on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. I look forward to documentation of this assertion. Richard Keatinge (talk) 14:19, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Gibbon’s theory that Christianity contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire has been (utterly) refuted by the academia

message: ... you know you have religious apologists in your midst who are trying to downplay this legendary scholar because they don't like his critiques of their religions.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.28.65.14 (talk) 20:55, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  When the Criticism Section is Longer than the Summary ... 

message: The lead currently states that Vols. II-IV were published "in 1788–1789".  However, the title pages for the 1st edition of each of these vols. states 1788.  Is there a reason for saying 1789 (i.e. a citable source that the date on at least one of these title pages is incorrect)?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:3A1:9700:B1FA:1D41:F754:BCE5 (talk) 11:20, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Publication dates 

message: While this article does a great job showing the legacy and influence this work has had, it's severely lacking in terms of modern scholarly opinion. Anyone reading the current version might leave with under the impression that Gibbon's work was incredibly accurate, which is not something most historians would agree with. 
The "Criticism" section is so short, in fact, that I feel it was a deliberate choice. I don't understand the reasons for this though, and considering the pervasiveness of many myths originated in this book, even on this talk page, I think it should see a big increase in size. Swaggernagger (talk) 18:16, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scholarly consensus is lacking 

message: I don't know who gave the author the idea that Gibbon's style is detached or dispassionate, but I am laughing my head off. Gibbon was a Euro-centric bigot, hated Jews as well as Christians, scorned "barbarians" which, to him, included Mesopotamia which had been civilized since the 3000s BCE, etc. etc. etc. Either cite to who said this or actually read Gibbon for yourself.
100.15.127.199 (talk) 17:38, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  detached, dispassionate 

message: It's rather confusing that the dates associated with the quotes from Gibbon are a century after his death. Are they a typo or linked to the edition of the work?
192.176.202.37 (talk) 11:42, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dates in the style section 

message: I think the article should mention a little bit more that Gibbon's work has fallen out of favor, and is not really considered an accurate work of history. The way it currently reads may give off the impression that it is. Rousillon (talk) 13:35, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  No mention of modern scholarship 

message: I just finished reading Decline and Fall. It took years, but I enjoyed it. I had been told, before I started, that Gibbon said that Christianity caused the Fall. I did not find that anywhere in the book I read. Rather, it seems to me that Gibbon is critical of all religion, that he (like many modern historians) considers stories of miracles to be fables, and considers the constant quarrels within a religion and between religions to be the cause of many of the problems faced by the Roman Empire, particularly toward the end. Further, this belief seems to me obviously correct.
One reading of Gibbon does not give me the expertise to edit this article, but I would like to see an edit by a serious historian who does not focus on either attacking or defending Christianity. Rick Norwood (talk) 11:36, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  The article needs to be rewritten by a historian who does not have a religious ax to grind. 

message: It's not often that I criticize an article in its entirety. This evening I decided to dip into the famed tomes for the first time and came here to see what I might expect. What I didn't expect was a torrent of mealy-mouthed, one-sided sniping from the gallery. Having been an editor on WP for 14 years, it's easy for me to recognise a decently-written and reffed article, even if it doesn't have a a gold star or a green plus, and this certainly ain't one of them. This is what happens to articles about Palestine or Serbia if they are not protected: it's an excellent candidate for WP:Blow it up and start over. It's been a while since I was so disappointed by an article about a well-known work of literature or history. Quite frankly, what a load of old wank. MinorProphet (talk) 02:19, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oh dear...