my summer's GREAT CHALLENGE

College Life
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<p>so, my single goal for the summer vacation, before i face those smart people at ucla, is to finish THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE by Edward Gibbon, seen by many as the GREATEST prose ever written in the English language, written in FOUR languages (the footnotes are in French, Greek, Latin, English, the narrative in English).</p>

<p>any history majors out there? i need some help understanding Byzantine Empire. volume 4 is the worst so far. and i think even a history major will fall asleep when reading the various fortunes of SIXTY EMPERORS crammed into a chapter. i’m about the read about Prophet Mohamet and Islam’s domination of the world. but i think i need some background info from all u history majors, although i am somewhat acquinted with ancient history, medieval history is a forest of mysteries for me (even though i’ve been exposed to medieval kings, etc. from art history like the byzantine proto-renaissance italian art or ottonian art, etc.) </p>

<p>why am i reading this gigantic book that’s not only old and long, but of a quite dreary a subject? because i need to prepare myself for ANCIENT history of herodotus or thuycides, procopius, livy, etc. all the primary sources, and to get a background of art through exposure to history.</p>

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<p>welcome back sauronvoldemort</p>

<p>i’m a history major as well, and if i were you , unless you’re really interested in the material and you’re determined to work your way through gibbon, i would not bother reading it. there’s plenty of great summaries out there, plus with wikipedia, you can teach yourself exactly what you want, and not subject yourself to facts you dont care about (i.e., 60 emperors, etc).</p>

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<p>well…gibbon is a master story-teller…despite his archaic spellings and his redundant 18th century sentences…</p>

<p>but…i feel really awed…this guy spent like his whole life just studying and reading classical works…i think he deserves my time with the level of effort and time and painstaking evaluation he put into his work</p>