The Fate of Rome
Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire
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Narrated by:
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Andrew Garman
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By:
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Kyle Harper
About this listen
A sweeping new history of how climate change and disease helped bring down the Roman Empire
Here is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the Roman Empire. The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the catastrophic role that climate change and infectious diseases played in the collapse of Rome's power - a story of nature's triumph over human ambition.
Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, climate instability, and devastating viruses and bacteria. He takes listeners from Rome's pinnacle in the second century, when the empire seemed an invincible superpower, to its unraveling by the seventh century, when Rome was politically fragmented and materially depleted. Harper describes how the Romans were resilient in the face of enormous environmental stress, until the besieged empire could no longer withstand the combined challenges of a "little ice age" and recurrent outbreaks of bubonic plague.
A poignant reflection on humanity's intimate relationship with the environment, The Fate of Rome provides a sweeping account of how one of history's greatest civilizations encountered, endured, yet ultimately succumbed to the cumulative burden of nature's violence. The example of Rome is a timely reminder that climate change and germ evolution have shaped the world we inhabit - in ways that are surprising and profound.
Author bio: Kyle Harper is professor of classics and letters and senior vice president and provost at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425 and From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity. He lives in Norman, Oklahoma.
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Lost Civilizations
- 10 Societies That Vanished without a Trace
- By: Michael Rank
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Whether it is Plato's lost city of Atlantis, a technological advanced utopia that sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune"; the colony of Roanoke, whose early American settlers were swallowed up in the wild forest lands of the unexplored continent, or the Ancient American Explorers, who managed to arrive to the New World 2,000 years before Columbus, the disappearance of these societies is as cryptic as it is implausible. This book will look at cultures of the 10 greatest lost civilizations in history.
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Another Great Book from Michael Rank
- By MICHAEL H on 07-17-14
By: Michael Rank
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In the Wake of the Plague
- The Black Death and the World It Made
- By: Norman F. Cantor
- Narrated by: Bill Wallace
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
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Much of what we know about the greatest medical disaster ever, the Black Plague of the fourteenth century, is wrong. The details of the Plague etched in the minds of terrified schoolchildren the hideous black welts, the high fever, and the final, awful end by respiratory failure are more or less accurate. But what the Plague really was, and how it made history, remain shrouded in a haze of myths.
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Don't waste time or money
- By Anne on 01-22-09
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The Silk Roads
- A New History of the World
- By: Peter Frankopan
- Narrated by: Laurence Kennedy
- Length: 24 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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It was on the Silk Roads that East and West first encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures, and religions. From the rise and fall of empires to the spread of Buddhism and the advent of Christianity and Islam, right up to the great wars of the 20th century - this book shows how the fate of the West has always been inextricably linked to the East.
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An Absolutely SUPERB Book for Lovers of History
- By Dipam on 06-27-21
By: Peter Frankopan
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The Great Warming
- Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations
- By: Brian Fagan
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The history of the Great Warming of a half millennium ago suggests that we may yet be underestimating the power of climate change to disrupt our lives todayand our vulnerability to drought, writes Fagan, is the silent elephant in the room.
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Good book but unpracticed, disjointed narration.
- By Paul on 09-12-10
By: Brian Fagan
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Monsoon
- The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
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On the world maps common in America, the Western Hemisphere lies front and center, while the Indian Ocean region all but disappears. This convention reveals the geopolitical focus of the now-departed 20th century, but in the 21st century, that focus will fundamentally change. In this pivotal examination of the countries known as “Monsoon Asia”—which include India, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Burma, Oman, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Tanzania—best-selling author Robert D. Kaplan explains how crucial this dynamic area has become to American power.
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A map is worth a thousand words ...
- By Loren on 06-03-12
By: Robert D. Kaplan
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War! What Is It Good For?
- Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots
- By: Ian Morris
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 16 hrs and 56 mins
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Surprising as it sounds, war has made humanity safer and richer. In War! What Is It Good For?, the renowned historian and archaeologist Ian Morris tells the gruesome, gripping story of 15,000 years of war, going beyond the battles and brutality to reveal what war has really done to and for the world. War, and war alone, has created bigger, more complex societies, ruled by governments that have stamped out internal violence.
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Not What I Expected At All!!!
- By Leonard on 12-12-14
By: Ian Morris
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Nature's Mutiny
- How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West and Shaped the Present
- By: Philipp Blom
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
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Although hints of a crisis appeared as early as the 1570s, the temperature by the end of the 16th century plummeted so drastically that Mediterranean harbors were covered with ice, birds literally dropped out of the sky, and "frost fairs" were erected on a frozen Thames - with kiosks, taverns, and even brothels that become a semi-permanent part of the city. Recounting the deep legacy and far-ranging consequences of this "Little Ice Age", acclaimed historian Philipp Blom reveals how the European landscape had subtly, but ineradicably, changed by the mid-17th century.
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Starts On Track; End Becomes Ideological Rant
- By Danioton on 06-07-20
By: Philipp Blom
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Millennium
- From Religion to Revolution: How Civilization Has Changed over a Thousand Years
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
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In Millennium, best-selling historian Ian Mortimer takes the listener on a whirlwind tour of the last 10 centuries of Western history. It is a journey into a past vividly brought to life and bursting with ideas, that pits one century against another in his quest to measure which century saw the greatest change. We journey from a time when there was a fair chance of your village being burned to the ground by invaders - and dried human dung was a recommended cure for cancer - to a world in which explorers sailed into the unknown and civilizations came into conflict.
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Bad ending - literally
- By John Gordon on 12-14-16
By: Ian Mortimer
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1491
- New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
- By: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
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Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus' landing had crossed the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago; existed mainly in small nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas were, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last 30 years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.
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Exposes Non-Academic Audience to The Debate Between Ideas of Pre-Colombian America's
- By Christopher on 01-19-17
By: Charles C. Mann
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The Fall of the Roman Empire
- A New History of Rome and the Barbarians
- By: Peter Heather
- Narrated by: Allan Robertson
- Length: 21 hrs and 43 mins
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The death of the Roman Empire is one of the perennial mysteries of world history. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Peter Heather proposes a stunning new solution: Centuries of imperialism turned the neighbors Rome called barbarians into an enemy capable of dismantling an Empire that had dominated their lives for so long. A leading authority on the late Roman Empire and on the barbarians, Heather relates the extraordinary story of how Europe's barbarians, transformed by centuries of contact with Rome on every possible level, eventually pulled the empire apart.
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A New HIstory but not a better history
- By Mario on 03-28-14
By: Peter Heather
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Pale Rider
- The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World
- By: Laura Spinney
- Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
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In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankind's vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted - and often permanently altered - global politics, race relations, and family structures while spurring innovation in medicine, religion, and the arts.
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A Predilection for Those in the Prime of Life
- By Cynthia on 02-12-18
By: Laura Spinney
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What listeners say about The Fate of Rome
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- ICS
- 10-03-21
Indispensable reading
This book is so full of interesting information that I would have considered it a valuable scholarly contribution at any time. Read in the context of the Coronavirus pandemic it acquires a relevance that the author probably never imagined. It gives us a chance to rethink the profound political and social changes of Late Antiquity from the lens of climate change and microbial evolution and interaction with ancient civilizations. The timeframe covered is from the Antonine Plague up to, and very much including, the Plague of Justinian and its aftershocks until the seventh century CE.
While I enjoyed the narration and listened to the end, I decided half way through that this book merits to be bought as a physical copy as well, for it contains a wealth of data the significance of which is easily lost when one doesn't see the figures written down. I think it will also be invaluable as a reference book in the future.
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- Sterling Wright
- 12-12-18
Just a terrific book. Every chapter is enlightening and substantive.
I have a degree in classics and have read many books about Rome. I will say that this is one of my favorites. It’s inclusion of scientific techniques and how they are reshaping our understanding of the Roman world is brilliantly done.
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- ryon
- 10-13-21
Read it now
The author begins by admitting that the new methods and discoveries which fuel this book are progressing at such a rapid pace that the whole book will probably be out of date in five years.
All the more reason to read it now. It's a wonderful book. It has revised so much of what I thought I knew about Rome, and not just facts, it has changed my base narrative.
It's one of those books where at least daily I found myself pestering my family with anecdotes.
I love it, and I'll probably come back to it again.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Fred
- 03-20-21
Outstanding!
Wonderful to see history as we have learned it, supplemented, expanded and enriched by ecology, microbiology and climatology. This allows a deeper, richer and much more nuanced understanding of this most famous “decline and fall.” Yes the players in this drama made good decisions and bad. But forces they could not imagine much less understand or control often were often decisive. Well written and well performed. Deserving of a second or even a third read/listen.
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- L. Ford Ballard, Jr.
- 11-30-19
Wonderful update of Gibbons
Delighted to learn about all the research and new discoveries that have updated the fate of Rome. Well narrated and very well written. Ideal book for my daily two mile walk.
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- steve
- 09-29-20
Rating Change
I rated this book a 5 in all categories several months ago and greatly enjoyed it. With time on my hands due to Covid I decided to listen to it again. I was quite surprised how little I had remembered and during my second time around I could see why; the book was organized in a nonchronological way, moving back and forth through the centuries, chapter after chapter. The relevant centuries, primarily the 2nd- 5th centuries, were so mixed up that the book lacked a cohesive narrative. The subject matter was great but it was difficult to remember much of it when presented in such a disorganized manner. Imagine a book centered on the climate and disease of the United States, or some other historical subject, that jumps back and forth with no chronological order. As I listened each chapter made sense but I had no idea how little of the specifics, or the general content, I had retained until my second listen. Should have rated it a 4 overall and story, at best.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Nicholas
- 12-30-21
excellent
was very interesting, a blend of medical and economic history as well as political
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- Anne
- 09-03-23
Captivating story
The broad perspective and narrative style are compelling. Hints of parallels in modern times are inescapable and bring the past to life.
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- Clint Bartley
- 08-22-18
Very interesting and new content
This book brings in new findings to explain what happened in the late Roman Empire. Very interesting indeed. This is not an introduction book, however. Definitely more for the academic type or someone somewhat familiar with the Roman Empire.
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- Gary A. Hill
- 12-12-18
Fate of Rime
Well researched, obviously. New thoughts about weather and bacteria as regards to the demise of the Empire. I learned a lot, and I’ve read around 15 books on the subject of Rome and its citizens. A fifth star wasn’t given because I needed a dictionary to translate....but maybe the onus is on me!
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