Overview
- Investigates the 'myth' of the decline and fall of Rome in British and American culture
- Analyses how writers, filmmakers and the media conceptualise this narrative and draw parallels to contemporary world
- Argues the 'rise and fall' is a myth representing fears of the instability of civilisations then and now
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media (PSHM)
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book investigates the ‘decline and fall’ of Rome as perceived and imagined in aspects of British and American culture and thought from the late nineteenth through the early twenty-first centuries. It explores the ways in which writers, filmmakers and the media have conceptualized this process and the parallels they have drawn, deliberately or unconsciously, to their contemporary world. Jonathan Theodore argues that the decline and fall of Rome is no straightforward historical fact, but a ‘myth’ in terms coined by Claude Lévi-Strauss, meaning not a ‘falsehood’ but a complex social and ideological construct. Instead, it represents the fears of European and American thinkers as they confront the perceived instability and pitfalls of the civilization to which they belonged. The material gathered in this book illustrates the value of this idea as a spatiotemporal concept, rather than a historical event – a narrative with its own unique moral purpose.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Jonathan Theodore studied at the University of Oxford and King’s College London, UK and has been a tutor in early European history at the latter. His first book, Cyprus and the Financial Crisis, was published by Palgrave in 2015.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Modern Cultural Myth of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Authors: Jonathan Theodore
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56997-4
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-84893-5Published: 06 December 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-56997-4Published: 13 August 2016
Series ISSN: 2634-6575
Series E-ISSN: 2634-6583
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 228
Topics: Ancient History, Cultural History, History of Ancient Europe