I finally finished The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the giant Edward Gibbon tome. I mentioned it on other threads, but not this one because I was afraid I wouldn't finish it. And I sometimes would go 6-8 weeks without reading it, because the reality of this sweep of time is actually terrifying--from Augustus to the 15th c. It was 1253 pp. and this was an abridged version. What. A. Genius. And you get this new perspective of states and religions and classes like nowhere else (at least I did.)
But it was worth it, and I'd say it was the hardest and best book I have ever read. His mid-18th c. English is marvelous, and often very witty. I always vaguely thought I'd never read this, but I read some Chinese history on a historian's blog about a year ago, and he's a professional; so I was inspired to read this, which even gets around to a bit of Ghengis Khan, although I'm not that interested in Asian history yet.
Every sentence, every paragraph is packed with so much information it's dizzying. I definitely realized about p. 950 that I would have to re-read it. But I look forward to it, and I also look up all those rulers and places on the net. Now when I go to a great museum I'll know precisely what Minoan was and then what Mycaenian was, and Hellenistic being centered eventually later in Alexandria--things like that. It's not for everybody, I'd think.
