1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910254775603321

Autore

Theodore Jonathan

Titolo

The Modern Cultural Myth of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire / / by Jonathan Theodore

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London : , : Palgrave Macmillan UK : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2016

ISBN

1-137-56997-2

Edizione

[1st ed. 2016.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (X, 228 p.)

Collana

Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media, , 2634-6575

Disciplina

930

Soggetti

History, Ancient

Civilization—History

Europe—History—To 476

Ancient History

Cultural History

History of Ancient Europe

History

Rome History Empire, 284-476

Rome (Empire)

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction -- 1: Historiography, myth and visual culture -- 2: The Fall of Rome and ideas of decline -- 3: Roman decline and the West in the modern age -- 4: Decadence, imperialism and decline from the late Twentieth Century -- Conclusion -- Bibliography.

Sommario/riassunto

This book investigates the ‘decline and fall’ of Rome as perceived and imagined in aspects of British and American culture and thought from the late nineteenth through the early twenty-first centuries. It explores the ways in which writers, filmmakers and the media have conceptualized this process and the parallels they have drawn, deliberately or unconsciously, to their contemporary world. Jonathan Theodore argues that the decline and fall of Rome is no straightforward historical fact, but a ‘myth’ in terms coined by Claude Lévi-Strauss, meaning not a ‘falsehood’ but a complex social and ideological construct. Instead, it represents the fears of European and American



thinkers as they confront the perceived instability and pitfalls of the civilization to which they belonged. The material gathered in this book illustrates the value of this idea as a spatiotemporal concept, rather than a historical event – a narrative with its own unique moral purpose. .