The Modern Cultural Myth of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire / by Jonathan Theodore.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Theodore, Jonathan, 1985- author.

Contributor:

SpringerLink (Online service)

Series:

Palgrave studies in the history of the media

Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

History, Ancient.

Civilization--History.

Civilization.

History.

Europe--History--To 476.

Europe.

Ancient History.

Cultural History.

History of Ancient Europe.

Local Subjects:

Ancient History.

Cultural History.

History of Ancient Europe.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Edition:

First edition 2016.

Contained In:

Springer Nature eBook

Place of Publication:

London : Palgrave Macmillan UK : Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

System Details:

text file PDF

Summary:

This book investigates the 'decline and fall' of Rome as perceived and imagined in aspects of British and American culture and thought from the late nineteenth through the early twenty-first centuries. It explores the ways in which writers, filmmakers and the media have conceptualized this process and the parallels they have drawn, deliberately or unconsciously, to their contemporary world. Jonathan Theodore argues that the decline and fall of Rome is no straightforward historical fact, but a 'myth' in terms coined by Claude Lévi-Strauss, meaning not a 'falsehood' but a complex social and ideological construct. Instead, it represents the fears of European and American thinkers as they confront the perceived instability and pitfalls of the civilization to which they belonged. The material gathered in this book illustrates the value of this idea as a spatiotemporal concept, rather than a historical event - a narrative with its own unique moral purpose. .

Contents:

Introduction

1: Historiography, myth and visual culture

2: The Fall of Rome and ideas of decline

3: Roman decline and the West in the modern age

4: Decadence, imperialism and decline from the late Twentieth Century

Conclusion

Bibliography.

Other Format:

Printed edition:

ISBN:

9781137569974

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.