Wheels within wheels

What a tangled web the Internet weaves! Simulteneously as I read Peter Heather's new work The Fall of the Roman Empire plus Rome's Gothic Wars I was also just beginning my LT experience, logging in my books etc. From LT I discovered (among other things), the Roman History Books site (http://romanhistorybooks.typepad.com/), which led me to "Bread & Circuses" - Adrian Murdoch's blog which carried info on a book I've just ordered: The Last Roman: Romulus Augustulus and the Decline of the West by Murdoch. Which reminds me a fictional account of Romulus Augustulus - The Last Legion- starring Colin Firth,will soon be hitting theaters. Enjoy!

Fall of the Roman Empire?

I'm not reading in this area much anymore, Ammianus, but last time I did it was when academic thinking was drifting away from the Gibbonesque notion of Rome's having fallen.

You know, the whole focusing towards the north and away from the Mediterranean as the center of the world. Pirenne, Lopez...

What's Peter H. got to say?

I thought Heather's book was quite good-very funny in parts. His point was that, yes, Rome did actually fall. Not for the reasons Gibbon gave, but it was definitely a big collapse.
What I wanted to say, Ammianus, is that there's a great Ancient History group on LT. I've learned a lot, and gotten some great suggestions from reading the posts over there.

Did Heather actually give a date of this supposed fall. It might be interesting to see whether people actually living at that time noticed. Certainly those living in Byzantium would have been surprised.

It was supposed to have been in August 476 when Romulus Augustulus actually fell. I don't know if Heather was in agreement with that.