true greatness - Rated 
Gibbon's ultra-fine and tortious delve into the history of Rome wrecked his faith in Christianity (he figured out they just made it up as they went along). This book (the full version) still retains the esteem of being among the list of books banned by the Vatican in its Index Librorium prohibitorum.
The text unfolds eloquently in the grand august language that set the standard for all subsequent big histories.
The quality of style is evident from the beginning as your fears of being swamped in a mass of cold detail and chronology are quickly erased. The initial encounter is one of profound eloquence, deep insights and detailed stories grounded in their appropriate context. The text is full of reflective asides on the nature of human beings, the corruptive nature of power, the fragile frame of human unity, and above all the sheer hypocrisy of the dogmas used by ruling forces to give either an ideological or credal basis for their despotism.
I absolutely loved this book, kept in my bag, at my bedside and read it bit by bit, on and off, for over a year. Admittedly, i'm not able to recall the names of all the emperors, all the battles or recite much of the factual instances narrated...but that wasn't the point. It was a journey, rather like taking occasional walks with a wise old man.
That said, i don't want to belittle the technical merits of this book at the expense of singing its praises as a piece of sweeping profundity. It IS a brilliant and detailed history book, in the sense that it tells you what happened, who did it and what the siginificance of the instance was.
You can just use it a reference book by simply picking out a theme from either the index or the contents and soon find yourself respectably versed in an important area of European/near eastern history.
I suspect most people will buy this, as i did, with no intent of reading it cover to cover, but once i got started - it was just so engrossing and rich in style that it became a pleasure to read. I must note that some parts, especially long supplements in relation to the agriculture, monetary and admin systems of certain epochs were boring (but i skipped those).
....come to think of it, i did skip large sections of this book - but it is over 800 pages long and its too much to ask anyone to read every word.
No pain, no gain - Rated 
This isn't an easy ride: it took me months AND I got lost among all the emperors! Having said that it has wonderful anecdotes and sweeping overviews that leave you quite out of breath. Can be bitingly satirical too.
Awe-inspiring account of the lost Roman dream - Rated 
At the beginning of this book the Roman empire stands unconquerable - arguably the most successful civilisation ever; by the end Constantinople is falling and the last Caesar is able to muster only a handful of soldiers for the defence of his degenerate regime. The scope of this book is awesome. It is hard to believe that the original text was written over 200 years ago. Gibbon's clarity of thought and arguement is superb.
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