The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 羅馬帝國衰亡史（英文版）

以優美流暢、諷刺犀利的英語散文著稱，被譽爲"英語散文的傑作"。不僅是一部羅馬史，更是一部關於文明興衰、權力更迭與人類命運的深刻沉思，至今仍是研究西方文明史不可繞過的經典。Gibbon has his place in literature not only as the stylist, who never lays aside his toga when he takes up his pen, but as the expounder of a large and striking idea in a sphere of intense interest to mankind, and as a powerful representative of certain tendencies of his age. The guiding idea or “moral” of his history is briefly stated in his epigram: “I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion.” In other words, the historical development of human societies, since the second century after Christ, was a retrogression (according to ordinary views of “progress”), for which Christianity was mainly to blame. This conclusion of Gibbon tended in the same direction as the theories of Rousseau; only, while Rousseau dated the decline from the day when men left Arcadia, Gibbon’s era was the death of Marcus Aurelius.