WolfesBlog
by Silver

11/19/05

Reading Gibbon's masterpiece feels like being hit in the face with a 2x4 over and over again. The parallels of the decaying Roman empire with those of modern America are frequent, obvious, and always dismaying. It is simply astonishing that a work written in the 1770’s about events that occurred nearly 2,000 years ago should so frequently, and devastatingly, describe our plight. The passage I quoted above is not the best, it is simply the last one I read. It is rare to read as much as 10 pages without encountering something equally sobering. What I find remarkable is not the painful parallels, which many learned and eloquent writers have been pointing out for decades. My airport discussions have invariably turned to the subject of the declining American empire. When I mention the striking similarity of decaying Roman society to our own, the response is always: 'Yes, but the fall of the Roman empire took four hundred years'...

http://www.clairewolfe.com/wolfesblog/00001813.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp