Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire Roman civilisation which under-girded the Empire. According to this school, drawing its basic premise from the Pirenne thesis, the Roman world underwent a gradual (though often violent) series of transformations, morphing into the medieval world. The historians belonging to this school often prefer to speak of Late Antiquity instead of the Fall of the Roman Empire. In "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (1776–88), Edward Gibbon famously placed the blame on a loss of civic virtue among the Roman citizens. They gradually entrusted the role of defending the Empire to barbarian mercenaries who eventually turned
Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire (1985; second edition 2004) is a book by the psychologist Hans Eysenck, in which the author criticizes Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis, which he argues is unscientific. The second edition has a preface by his widow, Sybil Eysenck. The book received both positive and negative reviews. Eysenck has been criticized for his discussion of Josef Breuer's treatment of his patient Anna O., whom Eysenck argues suffered from tuberculous meningitis. Eysenck argues that psychoanalysis is unscientific and that its theories are based on no legitimate base of observation