The Modern Cultural Myth of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

By Jonathan Theodore

Book Overview

Introduction.- Representation and Myth; Hermeneutics and Historical Consciousness; Antiquity, Past and Present; Methodology.- 1: Historiography, Myth and Visual Culture.- The Fall of the Western Roman Empire and its Modern Historiography; The Decline and Fall as an Atypical Model of Myth; Myth as Interdisciplinary Study; Theories of Myth; Historiography, Myth and Literature; Historical "Consciousness" and Narrative; Classics and The Vernacular; Film and a Consciousness of Antiquity; Truth and Accuracy in Historical Cinema.- 2: The Fall of Rome and Ideas of Decline.- The Tradition of Decline; Gibbon's Decline and Fall; Gibbon and Concepts of Decadence.- 3: Roman Decline and the West in the Modern Age.- Rome and Reflections on Twentieth Century Society; Roman Narratives and the Cold War; Mann, Hollywood and Historical "Truth"; The Fall and Contemporary Discourses of Empire.- 4: Decadence, Imperialism and Decline from the Late Twentieth Century.- Mass Culture and its Critics; Gladiator, Rome And America in 2000 Ad; 9/11 and Critics of Empire; Cinema and the Decline and Fall in the New Millennium; Rome, Civilization and The Modern Age.- Conclusion.- Bibliography

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 134984893X
• ISBN13: 9781349848935
• Release Date: December 2018
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
• Length: 228 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.8" x 8.3"