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Downstream: What the Roman Empire Tells Us About the Collapse of the West W/ Peter Heather and John Rapley

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Episode notes

Everyone knows that the Roman Empire rose, then fell. Historians don’t all agree on the reasons for the collapse, but their misunderstandings can shed plenty of light on the current state of the world, according to the authors of How Empires Fall: Rome, America and the Future of the West.

Peter Heather, a historian of antiquity, and John Rapley, a political economist, talk to Aaron about the uncanny parallels and productive differences between ancient history and the present day. What do most historians get wrong about the fall of Rome? Was 1999 the peak of civilisation? And can anything stop western decline?

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