title: The Portable Gibbon : The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
author:  Edward Gibbon 
description: The classic account of the history of the Roman Empire.
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  1995 Modern Library Edition
  
  
  
  
  
  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
  Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York,
  and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
  
  
  
  
  
  MODERN LIBRARY and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
  
  
  
  
  
  Grateful acknowledgment is made to HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.  
  for permission to reprint “The Intimacy of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall,”  
  Chapter 4 from Hidden History by Daniel J. Boorstin.  
  Copyright © 1987 by Daniel J. Boorstin.  
  Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
  
  
  
  
  
  Essay by Paul McPharlin reprinted with the courtesy of Marjorie Batchelder
  McPharlin.
  
  
  
  
  
  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
  
  
  
  
  
  Gibbon, Edward, 1737–1794.
  
  
  
  
  
  [History of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire]
  
  
  
  
  
  The decline