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Why Empires Fall

Rome, America and the Future of the West

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Why Empires Fall

By: John Rapley, Peter Heather
Narrated by: Sid Sagar
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Over the last three centuries, the West rose to dominate the planet. Then, suddenly, around the turn of the millennium, history reversed. Faced with economic stagnation and internal political division, the West has found itself in freefall.

This is not the first time the global order has witnessed such a dramatic rise and fall. The Roman Empire followed a similar arc from dizzying power to disintegration - a fact that is more than a strange historical coincidence. In Why Empires Fall, historian Peter Heather and political economist John Rapley use this Roman past to think anew about the contemporary West, its state of crisis, and what paths we could take out of it.

In this exceptional, transformative intervention, Heather and Rapley explore the uncanny parallels - and productive differences - between the two cases, moving beyond the familiar tropes of invading barbarians and civilizational decay to learn new lessons from ancient history. From 399 to 1999, the life cycles of empires, they argue, sow the seeds of their inevitable destruction. The era of the West has reached its own end - so what comes next?

©2023 John Rapley and Peter Heather (P)2023 Penguin Audio Americas Ancient Civilization Politics & Government Rome United States World Imperialism Ancient History Latin American Socialism Taxation Africa Western Europe Capitalism

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Critic reviews

Two experienced scholars lucidly engage in contemporary debates about the future of the West and its parallels to the Roman Empire. This is comparative history done right. (David Potter, author of DISRUPTION: WHY THINGS CHANGE)
All stars
Most relevant  
I was anticipating some more profound insights.
I had heard the authors talking about the book on Dan Snow's podcast.
The book added information but relatively little insight to the podcast discussion.
The book is, in my opinion, stronger on analysing the fall of the Western Roman Empire than it is on the decline of the contemporary West.

I was slightly disappointed with this book.

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…now that we all understand what is going on; let’s get on with it and eat the rich!

Wonderful

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Well narrated story of late Roman Empire and structural economic and political factors involved in its demise based on latest research. Lessons and comparisons are drawn to more recent global history of empire, liberalism and emerging superpower competition. Well worth the listen with many great insights.

Great relevant historic lessons for today

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I had hoped for this to be more fascinating. I have read Peter heather before and enjoyed

Not as exciting as I hoped

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Informed analysis with historical perspective. Good narrator. A little on the shorter side, but I appreciated that it wasn't a slog. Well worth a listen.

informed analysis

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I bought this book, because anything by Peter Heather is a must buy. Unfortunately, while the parts about Roman history were good, the same cannot be said of the analysis of modern politics, which is superficial and sometimes even contradictory. For example, the authors criticize the Japanese government for being too spendthrift, as this has resulted in a very high debt to GDP ratio. At the same time, they make some recommendations that would dwarf any spending of the Japanese government, like a universal basic income. Aside from that, a host of mostly neoliberal policy positions are advocated, like unfettered immigration, without any regard for the effect of the existing population.

Internally contradictory

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Wow, I expected a history book. Not a juvenile woke take on why the right wing are baddies, and how we should pour free cash on our new migrant universe. The history part is ok, but boy hold on to your pants when it comes to the delusions and far leftist tropes about the right. I'd make the points they'd make here and knock them down one by one, but its so infantile I'd feel the need to do my times table first.

A total embarrassment

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I had expected to hear a lot more of how empires fall, instead I heard interesting material about Rome and the Modern West and then quite frantic polemical anti Far Right and Brexit arguments that made no sense. Such a shame to trash a good idea with poor execution and a lack of editorial control. The delivery was good but far too many grammatical and pronunciation errors which made the listen distracting. Sadly a failing grade.

An interesting proposition lost in the polemic

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