Rome fell. Will the modern-day West follow suit?
“Why Empires Fall” makes a diverting historical comparison, if not a wholly convincing one
DECLINISM is in fashion again. As relations between America and China worsen, studying the ends of earlier ages of hegemony becomes more popular. Books predicting the unstoppable rise of autocratic strongmen and the death of democracy proliferate. There is much talk of the “Thucydides trap”: the inevitability of a clash between a rising power and an established one, as Athens challenged Sparta in the fifth century bc.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Roman lessons”
Culture May 27th 2023
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