Decline and Fall contraction of Edward Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." The title alludes also to the German philosopher Oswald Spengler's "The Decline of the West" (1918–1922), which first appeared in an English translation in 1926 and which argued, among other things, that the rise of nations and cultures is inevitably followed by their eclipse. Waugh read both Gibbon and Spengler while writing his first novel. Waugh's satire is unambiguously hostile to much that was in vogue in the late 1920s, and "themes of cultural confusion, moral disorientation and social bedlam...both drive the novel forward and
The Fall of the American Empire (), Arcand announced in March that the film would be retitled "The Fall of the American Empire" to better reflect how the story developed. The new title was reminiscent of his 1986 "The Decline of the American Empire". Arcand said a theme would be how corruption can spread from the United States to Canada, which he said relies on "Pax Americana", a theme explored in "The Decline of the American Empire" and "The Barbarian Invasions" (2003). In his view, the U.S. had long been suffering and Quebec was affected. He analogized the current situation with the presidency of Donald Trump