The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Edward Gibbon (Abridged Edition) (Penguin Classics) Paperback – Abridged, 19 Jun. 2000

Published in 1776 when the midday sun was approaching on Britain's empire. A commanding time in British history and perhaps also a time when someone could take command of the story of Rome like The Master of a ancient ship. It is the utmost confidence of the prose style that is inspiring and compelling - you want to believe in what he is saying wether it is true or not. And most of it is still beyond doubt even today. Who cares - what an amazing story and what a wonderful way to discover the power of language.

I have got the book today. The print is so small I cannot read it. Will you swap it for the Kindle version please?The title is The History of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon.

I did not have an education that majored in the classics and having given up Latin before O levels, I think I fall short of the target audience of the original author and subsequent editor.One needs stamina and determination to read the book from cover to cover but the story it tells and the manner of its telling I found compelling.The great advantage of reading it on a Kindle is that if like me your vocabulary is inadequate to the task then you are able to use the inbuilt dictionary as you proceed.The story told is epic in every way and the lessons learnt have considerable relevance to today's society - for example, as riots were breaking out recently in Birmingham and London I read the following paragraph:"Whenever numerous groups of banditti, multiplied by success and impunity, publicly defy, instead of eluding the justice of their country, we may safely infer, that the excessive weakness of the government is felt and abused by the lowest ranks of the community"The sentence length, multiple levels of parenthesis, syntax and vocabulary require a greater level of concentration on behalf of the reader than then of a modern history book but the effort is worth it.The edition lost one star by not translating into English some (not all) of the footnotes left in Latin.

This has intelligently condensed Gibbon's magnum opus intoma maneagable volume while successfully retaining the masterful language and poetry of the original making it a very enjoyable read.

The book arrived promptly and in good condition.I read one of the versions of Gibbon many years ago and comment on the quality of the content based on that, as I am unsure of how long it will take me to read this one, or, indeed, whether I shall finish it. This is due to the very small print size; I would gladly have paid more to have had a bigger book or the contents shared between two parts. The normal text is small but the notes are even smaller. Before buying this version, invest in a readers magnifying glass !

If you would understand what has already happened and will probably continue to happen to Great Britain; then you would do well to read Gibbon and see the parallels between The Decline of both of these Empires.I wonder if he was cautiously warning of the parallels already becoming apparent even as he wrote during a time of supremacy in trade and control by the United Kingdom. The eartly signs of decay were already there for those who bothered to look! This book is worth every minute spent reading it; and beautifully written in clear and concise terms.

It is an abridgement but still a colossal volume which I have read with great enjoyment. Gibbon's prose is magnificent. I did not realise that the work covered such a long period and even dealt with Islam and the Reformation. Gibbon is opinionated and that is no bad thing in our contemporary world of historical scholarship!

I've not read all of these books, but I dip into them, with constant pleasure at the style and clarity and the occasional sharp remark. Definitely a set of books to keep and treasure and marvel at the work that went into them. Later histories may be easier to read at length but few have the breadth of Gibbon.