James J O'Donnell

What really marked the end of the Roman Empire? Was it a long, inevitable decay, or did real people make real choices with surprising and unintended effects? The Ruin of the Roman Empire takes us back to the sixth century, into the lives, cultures, and events that influenced ancient Rome. James O'Donnell restores the reputations of many "barbarians," while showing that Rome's last emperors doomed their realm with the hapless ways in which they...

Imagine a book about an unnecessary war written by the ruthless general of an occupying army - a vivid and dramatic propaganda piece that forces the reader to identify with the conquerors and that is designed, like the war itself, to fuel the limitless political ambitions of the author. Could such a campaign autobiography ever be a great work of literature - perhaps even one of the greatest? It would be easy to think not, but such a book exists -and...