October Books 9) Edward Gibbon and Empire, eds. Rosamond McKitterick & Roland Quinault
As you know, Bob, I spent a lot of time reading The Decline and Fall of he Roman Empire a few years back, and it certainly made me a Gibbon fan. This is a collection of essays from a conference commemorating the 200th anniversary of his death, in 1994, concentrating on the second half of the great work. Most of them are solid contributions, acknowledging Gibbon's pioneering genius on a particular topic, noting also his flaws, and updating us on how scholarship has moved on since. There were a few that stood out for me.
- Anthony Bryer, writing on Gibbon and the later Byzantine Empire, treats us to an entertaining stream of consciousness ("When I am introduced at wine and cheese parties as a Byzantinist, people still ask me whether we have yet overcome the bad press given by Gibbon, before turning on their heel") and ends with a quote from Iggy Pop.
- Rosamund McKittrick, one of the editors, looks at the eighteenth century's ideas about the period Gibbon was writing about before he started publishig, which takes her into a fascinating exploration of musical theatre. (Did you know that "Rule Britannia" was originally the closing number of an opera about King Alfred?)
- And the other editor, Roland Quinault, looks at Gibbon's direct influence on Winston Churchill, which is one of those things that once pointed out seems pretty obvious - not just the rhetorical technique, but also certain political themes, including Churchill's concept of European unity which was surely inspired by Gibbon's General Observations.