New Book from Adrian Goldsworthy: How Rome Fell

[Robert Vermaat]

I like Caballo's posting that review.

And me too! Thanks Caballo!

there is a moral for the 21st century here

How come that the fall of the Roman Empire is always compared to a crisis in the historian's own age?

That's how writing history works Jona. A historian is doomed to always look at the past through the glasses of his own day and age and/or set of values. That's also the very same reason why historians will always diffir in opinion over the lessons of the past, indeed it's why they look for lessons to be learned from the past in the first place.

I don’t think that authors should stop making theories simply because people in the past were wrong. We need theories to be tested, dissected, and critiqued. And of course they have to be published before we can do that.

Of course you are right, and I was exaggerating a bit. Still, I think testing could be done a lot better. It is absurd how many people believe they are historians once they start quoting the right sources and secondary literature. Tom Holland is a case in point, and the same can be said about Adrian Goldsworthy. But ever since Max Weber's ‘Kritische Studien auf dem Gebiet der kulturwissenschaftlichen Logik’ we (should) know better. I have seen too many logical errors, especially by British and American historians.

Hear hear! Too right! Writing a book about a historical subject does not make one a historian! The discussion about Barbara Tuchman (the 'self-trained historian') is still valid - have we forgotten it already?