Peter Heather is Chair of Medieval History at King's College London. Some of his most famous books include The Fall of the Roman Empire, Rome Resurgent and most recently Why Empires Fall: Rome, America and the Future of the West.
We talk about the last days of the western Roman empire, the role of barbarians, the rise of the Persian empire, decadence, popular cliches, the worst Roman Emperor of all time and many parallels of falling Rome with the West today.

#podcast #romanempire #history #rome #ancienthistory #fallofrome #romanhistory #historical #west #ancientrome

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Why Empires Fall by Peter Heather and John Rapley:
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Empires-Fa...

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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:13 The usual cliche about the fall of Rome
06:32 How did Rome change its neighbours?
12:41 Barbarians
13:42 The constant killing of last Emperors
17:19 Decadence
23:24 Was the late Empire still rich?
25:11 Events that finally bring the Empire down
31:11 The "disappearing values" argument
35:56 Did the elites mess it up?
41:22 Days after the Fall
46:21 Parallells with the West today
51:12 Best course of action
56:49 The polycentric World order
58:54 Global challenges
01:03:15 The WORST Roman emperor