Gibbon's history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire is a voluminous masterpiece. The book has 6 volumes, 7 1 chapter,1.2000 words. It can be roughly divided into two parts: Volume one to four is the first part (Chapter 65438 +0 to 47). In this part, after briefly reviewing the history of the Roman Empire from 1998 to 180, the author mainly describes the historical events from 180 to 64 1 year for nearly 500 years. The fifth and sixth volumes are the second part (chapter 48 to chapter 7 1), which describes the historical events from 64 1 to 1453, when the Turks captured Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire perished for more than 800 years. The author focuses on the first part, and the second part is concise. This book covers the historical events of the late Roman Empire and the whole Byzantine Empire, and it can be called a general history book with great ideas and essence.
As the greatest historian in Europe in the Enlightenment era, Gibbon not only wrote a great historical work, which added a valuable legacy to the treasure house of human history, but also had unique wisdom in historical thinking, showing the great progress of western historiography in the18th century.
Gibbon has the concept of continuous development of history. His History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was written from the time of Roman Antony to the early Renaissance in Europe, with a time span of 1300 years, covering three continents in the ancient world. It not only describes the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, but also relates to the history of Persian, Xiongnu, Germanic, Arabian and Turkish empires. He can write such a general history with a long history, many countries, a wide range and complicated historical events in an orderly and clear way, which is of course related to his superb narrative ability, but more importantly, the author has the concept of continuous development of history. He was the first to build a bridge in European historiography, connecting ancient and modern history. Before him, there had never been such a large-scale general history book in Europe, and he did not have the historical concept like Gibbon.
Gibbon attaches great importance to raw materials. He said: "My curiosity and sense of responsibility often force me to study the original historical materials." He has read and studied Greek and Latin classics since he was a child. He browsed the documents from the establishment of the Roman Empire to the Western Roman Empire and collected first-hand information. He carefully studied ancient cultural relics, collected ancient coins and studied ancient inscriptions. He also attached importance to the original materials collected by historians in 17 and 18 centuries, and made a comparative study with reference to other materials. He used a pen like a rafter, extensively cited and carefully researched. There is hardly a page without detailed notes and no page without history. Therefore, this book contains very rich historical materials. In the historical period written by Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is still an authoritative work. In many ways, it is still the standard used by people to judge ancient and medieval historical events, and it has been repeatedly quoted by modern historians.
Gibbon is also full of bold critical spirit. He praised and criticized hundreds of generations with his keen observation, skeptical spirit and vivid brushwork. For example, he criticized the Christian church with the meanest and most pungent language and cynical attitude, exposed the reasons why Christianity spread widely in the Roman Empire and excluded other religions, and believed that the "traditional Roman heroic spirit" disappeared under the influence of Christianity, and the destructive role played by Christianity was the main reason for the decline of the Roman Empire. He also criticized the cruelty of tyrants in an angry style, or wrote about their "inhumanity", or their "hurting loyalty", or their "debauchery and corruption". Even for "wise kings" such as Diocletian, Constantine and Justinian, he wrote their strengths and weaknesses, and sometimes regarded them as "tyrants". Chapters 15 and 16 of this book highlight the author's bold critical spirit.
Gibbon's critical spirit comes from his rationalism. He lived in the enlightenment era of18th century. At that time, enlightenment thinkers all over the world inherited humanist ideals, exposed rationalism, opposed idealism with materialism, opposed tyranny with political freedom, and opposed religious superstition with freedom of belief, thus profoundly criticizing everything they thought unreasonable-feudal absolutism and religious obscurantism. In short, "everything has been criticized by the most ruthless; Everything must defend its existence before a rational court, or give up its right to exist. " Such a trend of thought branded his thoughts deeply with the times. However, it was Montesquieu, a French enlightenment thinker, and Locke, an English thinker who had the greatest influence on Gibbon. His so-called luxury can balance wealth, education can assist the law, taxation should be proportional to the degree of freedom, and the harmonious system in Rome conforms to the principle of separation of powers. Some explanations of other historical problems can be found in Montesquieu's theory of separation of powers and Locke's thought of freedom and equality. Therefore, his view of history is completely the product of bourgeois enlightenment thought in18th century.
Admittedly, Gibbon's works also have many defects. For example, he thinks that "the main theme of history is war and politics", thus ignoring the economic factors that determine social progress, and can't explain all historical events and concepts by "the material and economic living conditions in a certain historical period". He ignores the great role of the people in creating history. The book centers on emperors, princes, popes and bishops, attributes history to the activities of dignitaries, and takes a casual attitude towards the struggle of slaves against slave owners and serfs against feudal owners. He also held a negative attitude towards the history of the Middle Ages in Europe, for example, he thought that there was basically no merit in medieval culture. These are all determined by the conditions of the times and historical idealism of the author. However, on the whole, his book is a masterpiece of western historiography.
Gibbon predicted hopefully that his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire would have a "future fate". As a historical work, his book really won a great reputation after his death. The author's gorgeous writing style and vivid language, coupled with his good at absorbing nutrition from Polybius, Li Zhi, Tacitus and other classical writers and learning their various expressions, really achieved what he said. His books should be put in scholars' study and ladies' dressing tables and become popular books. Today, it has long gone beyond the scope of Britain and has been translated into French, German, Italian, Russian, Polish, modern Greek, Hungarian and many other languages. Like the works of Herodotus, Tacitus and other famous historians, it ranks among the world's masterpieces and is widely circulated in all countries of the world. Many of its chapters have been selected as university textbooks and welcomed by teachers and students. In the modern west, no book is so popular and has such a far-reaching impact on the world as Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.