Causes Quote by Edward Gibbon

“Rather than a great tragedy, the fall of Rome was the single most beneficial event in the rise of Western civilization.”

— Rodney Stark

“History, as it was purveyed to us, was not so much a narrative, not even the detached observation of the rise and fall of…

— Patricia Hampl

“recent events compel us to raise anew. From the beginning, the most serious and systematic attempts to write Universal Histories saw the central issue…

— Francis Fukuyama

“By virtue of its unbounded aggression, Roman imperialism was ultimately responsible for its own destruction.”

— Peter Heather

Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.

— Lee Simonson

“One person's actions can alter the course of history, and a political or military mischance can touch off a catastrophic reaction that has repercussions…

— Timothy Venning

The fall of Rome seemed unthinkable to people at the time but inevitable to historians reflecting upon it with the benefit of context.

— Mary Pilon

“It is a tale that is told, from which we may draw the knowledge and comprehension needed for the future. The disproportion between the…

— Winston Churchill

History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and…

— Edmund Burke

“History, in any case, cannot be reduced to some sort of game of comparing misdeeds in different eras; each period must be judged in…

— Shashi Tharoor

“There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the…

— Ken Wilson

“history is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books—books which glorify…

— Dan Brown