Description: Michael Kulikowski traces two hundred years of Roman history during which the Empire became ungovernable and succumbed to turbulence and change. A sweeping political narrative, The Tragedy of Empire tells the story of the Western Roman Empire's downfall, even as the Eastern Empire remained politically strong and culturally vibrant.
Brief description: Michael Kulikowski is the author of Rome's Gothic Wars, Late Roman Spain and Its Cities, and The Triumph of Empire (Harvard). Kulikowski has appeared in a number of documentaries on the History Channel, including Barbarians Rising, Rome, and Criminal History: Rome, and writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal and London Review of Books. He is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Classics at Pennsylvania State University.
Review Quotes: Kulikowski's tale is complex, and frequently bloody, with dynastic intrigue, Persian wars, assassinations, usurpations, religious disputes, barbarian incursions, and repeated civil wars... A very valuable overview and analysis of the knotty question of why the empire 'fell' in the west, while it survived in the east.--A. A. Nofi "StrategyPage"