What so modern researchers write about the reasons of the collapse of the Wetsern Empire in the west in the 5-th century? Many modern authors deny the economic reaons of this collapse.
Quote:What so modern researchers write about the reasons of the collapse of the Wetsern Empire in the west in the 5-th century? Many modern authors deny the economic reaons of this collapse.
Which authors? Nor, for example, Chris Wickham (
review). Admittedly, there are several modern scholars who stress the importance of the arches of the Huns (e.g., Luttwak), but they have been criticized (
here), and I think that military explanations are often founded on insufficient understanding of what a cause actually is. (If the Huns had better weapons, then why was economically superior Rome not capable of adapting to it? In the end, it's always the economy that matters.)
In my opinion, a change in the Italian economy, probably caused by the loss of Africa, is still the idea that explains the greatest number of facts of the greatest diversity - see again Wickham. And I think that Alexander Demandt,
Der Fall Roms, is still obligatory reading. The last page contains a list of 210 factors said to have contributed to the fall of Rome: listed alphabetically from "Aberglaube" to "Zweifrontenkrieg".
I just started to read Adrian Goldsworthy's The Fall Of The West: The Death Of The Roman Superpower.
Seems quite interesting overview about why things went how they did.
Don't bother studying history and especially don't bother even considering all those interesting fields such as sociology, anthropology, religion, politics and their wonderful interactions. "In the end, it's always the economy that matters."
hock: 8) ? roll: :lol:
Economics explains less and less the more one tries to force it to explain all. Economy is just another epiphenomenon.
Economy matters, but it simply isn't the entire story...often it is an 'enabling' or 'disabling' cause for further developments, but there are more ingredients in history's cuisine. :?
Not sure if this answers the original question, though :mrgreen: