THE INTEL BRIEF

News and Content From Our Members





Menu
Log in

Log in
FR

Why Empires Fall; Rome, America and the Future of the West by Peter Heather and John Rapley

September 13, 2025 10:38 AM | Anonymous
Disclaimer: Articles are chosen for relevance and circulated for information only. Views expressed are those of the respective journalists / authors. Republication does not infer endorsement.

Book Review Editor: Ralph Mahar - Suggestions for Book Reviews will be gratefully received at thepillarsociety.bulletins@gmail.com

Avertissement : Les articles sont choisis pour leur pertinence et sont diffusés à titre d'information seulement. Les opinions exprimées sont celles des journalistes/auteurs respectifs. La republication n'implique pas d'approbation. 

Rédacteur en chef des critiques de livres : Ralph Mahar - Les suggestions de critiques de livres sont les bienvenues à l'adresse suivante : thepillarsociety.bulletins@gmail.com
© Peter Zelei Images/Moment/Getty Images

Book Review:
Why Empires Fall: Rome, America, and the Future of the West
by Peter Heather and John Rapley

September 5, 2023
Publisher: Yale University Press

Why Empires Fall: Rome, America, and the Future of the West
by Peter Heather and John Rapley

 
A new perspective on parallels between ancient Rome and the modern world, and what comes next
 
“[A] provocative short book . . . with a novel twist.”—The Economist

 
Over the last three centuries, the West rose to dominate the planet. Then, around the start of the new millennium, history took a dramatic turn. Faced with economic stagnation and internal political division, the West has found itself in rapid decline compared to the global periphery it had previously colonized. This is not the first time we have seen such a rise and fall: the Roman Empire followed a similar arc, from dizzying power to disintegration.
 
Historian Peter Heather and political economist John Rapley explore the uncanny parallels, and productive differences, between ancient Rome and the modern West, moving beyond the tropes of invading barbarians and civilizational decay to unearth new lessons. From 399 to 1999, they argue, through the unfolding of parallel, underlying imperial life cycles, both empires sowed the seeds of their own destruction. Has the era of Western global domination indeed reached its end? Heather and Rapley contemplate what comes next.


Indigo Amazon 

Reviews:

“[A] fascinating book.”—Martin Wolf, Financial Times, “Best Summer Books of 2023: Economics”

“[A] provocative short book . . . with a novel twist.”—The Economist

“The book is certainly a useful post-Gibbonian primer in why things went wrong for the Romans—Heather’s scholarship shines through its pages.”—The Telegraph
See also:

Why Empires Fall as reviewed by G. John Ikenberry for Foreign Affairs -  January / February 2024

Why Empires Fall as reviewed by Carlos Norena for TLS -  July 28, 2023

About the book: 
Why Empires Fall: Rome, America, and the Future of the West
by Peter Heather and John Rapley
Yale University Press - 200 pages 36.74 (Kindle)
Publication Date: September 5, 2023


About the Author: Peter Heather
 

Peter Heather was born in Northern Ireland in 1960 and educated at Maidstone Grammar School and New College, Oxford. He has taught at University College, London, and Yale University, and is currently a Fellow of Medieval History at Worcester College Oxford. He is the author of a number of acclaimed works of history, including The Fall of the Roman Empire, published by Pan Macmillan in 2005.
Biography Credit:  Pan MacMillan


About the Author: John Rapley
 

John Rapley is a political economist specialized in global development, the world economy and economic history. Born, raised and educated in Canada, he returned to his parents’ old meeting-ground, Oxford, on a post-doctoral fellowship.

After launching his academic career there in the Department of International Development, Rapley decided to immerse himself in his subject by moving to the developing world. There, he spent the next two decades working as an academic, journalist and ultimately the creator of a think tank (the Caribbean Policy Research Institute).

After helping governments navigate the 2008 financial crisis, he returned to Britain, making his home at the University of Cambridge. Teaching in the University’s Centre of Development Studies, Rapley resumed the writing life, and now divides his time among Europe, Canada, and South Africa, where he is a senior fellow at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, along with South Korea, where he is a visiting professor at Yonsei University’s Institute for Poverty Alleviation and International Development.

Rapley still keeps his hand in journalism and, following a long and varied career during which he interviewed everything from prime ministers and billionaires on their private islands to drug-lords and victims of sex-slavery, he contributes frequently to the Globe and Mail.

Biography Credit:  GlobeandMail

À propos du livre :
Pourquoi les empires tombent : Rome, l'Amérique et l'avenir de l'Occident
par Peter Heather et John Rapley
Yale University Press - 200 pages 36,74 (Kindle)
Date de publication : 5 septembre 2023


The Pillar Society Privacy Policy and Terms of Service | © Copyright 2025 The Pillar Society | All Rights Reserved