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Conclusion: Roman Decline and Fall in Contemporary America
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Published:June 2021
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Abstract
In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Gibbon’s story of Roman decline and fall has frequently inspired attacks on changing elements of modern society. These attacks claim one needs to defend tradition if one wants contemporary society to avoid falling like Rome. Since the late 1960s, Americans as diverse as Ronald Reagan, Phyllis Schlafly, and Ben Carson have used this comparison to attack the welfare system, feminism, and gay marriage. The idea has also been adapted by alt-right figures like Richard Spencer into a call for a restoration of Rome. The book concludes by surveying ancient, medieval, and modern figures like Seneca and Romanus the Melode who suggest how cultural, religious, and material elements of Roman life might have reinforced the power of ideas of Roman decline and renewal by encouraging people to feel a personal connection to the Roman past and the figures who shaped it.
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