Factors Leading to the Fall of the Roman World

The late Michael Grant wrote in the early 1990s an excellent book that looked more at the societal reasons behind the collapse of the Roman world particularly in the west between the years AD 375 and AD 476. Unlike most works on the fall of Rome, this particular book is not written as a chronological narrative so it is easier to digest from a social standpoint.

Here are Grant's Thirteen factors leading to Rome's Fall:

1- The Generals against the state
2- People against the army
3- Poor against the state
4- Rich against the state
5- The middle class against the state
6- The people against Bureaucracy
7- The people against the Emperor
8- Ally against Ally
9- Race against Race
10- Drop outs against society
11- The state against free belief'
12- Complacency against self help
13- This world against the other world

In the upcoming few weeks I'll explore a number of these topics in greater detail based not only on Grant's writing but those of other historians that studied the time including Gibbon.