Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire The causes and mechanisms of the Fall of the Western Roman Empire are a historical theme that was introduced by historian Edward Gibbon in his 1776 book "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". He started an ongoing historiographical discussion about what caused the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, and the reduced power of the remaining Eastern Empire, in the 4th–5th centuries. Gibbon was not the first to speculate on why the Empire collapsed, but he was the first to give a well-researched and well-referenced account.
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church hand, "National Catholic Reporter" journalist Peter Hebblethwaite found parts of the book to be "incoherent" and "dogmatic" and wrote that Martin "seems to be making it all up". The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church is a 1981 non-fiction book by Catholic priest and author Malachi Martin. Martin wrote this book to analyse the sudden and rapid decline of the Roman Catholic Church in its ecclesiastical organization and doctrinal unity since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). The book is an account of the history of the Roman Catholic Church progressing from