
Edward Gibbon and the importance of great writing to great history - Thevet
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/best-scribblers/
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jvandonsel
Anybody here actually make it all the way through "Decline and Fall"? I've
tried a couple of times but given up each time.

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rodgerd
As a piece of writing it's excellent. Quoting it in the company of (most)
contemporary historians is not going to end well, though.

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AnimalMuppet
Why?

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chipsy
Because contemporary historiography has moved on and refutes many of Gibbon's
propositions. So _Decline and Fall_ is a good read, but also old enough to be
a part of history itself.

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chipsy
Examples of contemporary Gibbon discussion:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/10xtf2/theor...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/10xtf2/theory_thursdays_edward_gibbon_and_the_decline/)

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AnimalMuppet
That doesn't refute Gibbon's position. At best, it shows opinions to be
divided.

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ableal
> an odd mistake for a historian to make.

[final footnote, wrong temple]

Well, the text also swaps eastern for western when referring to an emperor ...

I don't think I ever read a text so ambiguous about its own declared thesis -
the good writing bit - when it makes abundantly clear how much the writer's
prejudices flawed the result.

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cafard
To quote (approximately) from Clive James (essay in _Cultural Amnesia_ ) on
Gibbon's style "the Grand National, with fences 10 yards apart, each to be
jumped forward and backward; and you have to carry your horse."

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TomDavey
If one reads the U.S. Declaration of Independence, published in 1776 (the same
year as Volume 1 of D&F), it's written in the same Latinate periodic style.
That's just how they wrote in the 18th century. Dinging Gibbon for failing to
stand outside his historical period is not really fair.

Or try the Federalist Papers, or anything written by the U.S. founding
fathers. Same style. Even better, try Fielding's "Tom Jones." Prose as
masterly as Gibbon's, but you'll laugh yourself silly at the ribald and bawdy
humor, not equaled again until the 20th century. Gotta love the English
Enlightenment.

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m52go
> A married historian, productive in the way Gibbon was, is not so much a joke
> but perhaps an impossibility. One can be the author of a vast historical
> work of the kind of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
> which was 20 years in the composing, or be happily married, but one is
> unlikely to bring off both.

Will Durant was both, in my estimation.

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walterbell
He wrote with his wife, winning a joint Pulitzer,
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Durant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Durant)

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lisa_henderson
You should include both of them:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Durant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Durant)

And yet, this is the exception that probes the rule. The above quote has an
element of humor in it, and it is basically saying "No modern marriage would
allow this, as no modern spouse allow themselves to be ignored for so long."
But Will and Ariel Durant did not have a modern marriage. Such a marriage is
now illegal everywhere. Will Durant would now get 10 years in jail for
announcing his feelings.

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m52go
I'm sorry, I don't follow. What do you mean?

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gjm11
Presumably that Will met, and fell in love with, Ariel when he was 26 or
thereabouts and she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl at the school where he
taught. So saith Wikipedia, anyway.

