Why Empires Fall: Rome, America, and the Future of the West

Following in the footsteps of the historian Edward Gibbon and many others, Heather and Rapley find striking parallels between ancient Rome and the modern West in this fascinating study. Both imperial Rome and the industrial West experienced rapid economic growth, generating new flows of wealth for the imperial center. This economic dynamism lasted for centuries, but it inadvertently planted the seeds for decline. In the case of ancient Rome, Heather and Rapley argue that the empire’s economic and political expansion into peripheral areas stimulated the formation of new frontier confederations, immigration flows, and regional and provincial conflicts that weakened the imperial center. The eventual revival of Persia as a peer competitor put unsustainable pressure on Rome’s declining fiscal and military capacities. The book argues that broad forces of change—economic globalization, the growth of new regional powers, immigration, and the rise of China—foreshadow a similar relative decline of the modern West. The lesson ancient Rome holds for Western leaders is that primacy cannot be reestablished, but there is still time to create a world order that accommodates rising powers and also defends the West’s core interests.