The Fate of Rome

1 About this book

This book is a sweeping new history of how climate change and disease helped bring down the Roman Empire. Here is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the Roman Empire.

The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the catastrophic role that climate change and infectious diseases played in the collapse of Rome's power -- a story of nature's triumph over human ambition.

Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, climate instability, and devastating viruses and bacteria. He takes readers from Rome's pinnacle in the second century, when the empire seemed an invincible superpower, to its unraveling by the seventh century, when Rome was politically fragmented and materially depleted.

Good for readers who want: history, science, and climate change.

• History
• Science
• Rome, history
• Environmental conditions
• Climatic changes
• Effect of climate on
• Regression (Civilization)
• Civilization