It isn’t too hard to explain why Christianity became the predominant religion in the Roman Empire.  It was well organised.  It provided social security at a time of great insecurity.  It also had all the coercive power of the state behind it.   But how did the conversion of the barbarians make such inroads into

There are many reasons for reading the Decline and Fall of the Roman empire. For a start you get to know a lot about Roman history.  You also learn a lot about 18th Century Britain. I hope, or at least aspire, to get these across to people who haven’t read the book itself. But one thing

  Hi, I’m Colin Sanders, this is the History Books Review and this episode covers the rise of monasticism as described by Edward Gibbon in Chapter 37 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Things get pretty mixed up over the course of 1600 years, but there is a smidge of the blood of Alfred the Great in the veins of Prince Andrew.  In fact he has some kind of relationship to most of the occupants of the English throne.  And while some of them are admirable human beings,

Leo was an unlikely man to end up being called ‘the Great’.  Emperors had become mere figureheads. Military strongmen of barbarian origin actually called the shots and decided who sat on the throne in Constantinople.  Leo looked very much like a figurehead.  He had no particular credentials for joining the imperial ranks, and only got

An unusual viewpoint expressed in a Youtube video making the rather remarkable assertion that the Nazis were socialists. If you can’t be troubled to watch it – it is only 5 minutes or so but boy are they long minutes – here is a quick resumé of the gist of the argument.   Fascism and