History, information vs misinformation!

For serious readers, I would recommend The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire.

It was written by a famous Historian - Edward Gibbon. It traces the sequence of events that led to the demise of Roman Empire. Romans were a great civilization whose achievements were unmatched till the Age of Industrialization. The book is a masterpeice.

Two things stand out - an immensely powerful prose, and the impact it has had on shaping the thinking about Romans. However, the dark side of the story is that a well-meaning Gibbon relied on science and rhetoric of his times to extend his arguments. Unfortunately, the latter was far more advanced than the former. Therefore, a number of fallacies have crept in.

Sometimes of his arguments do not hold up to good scrutiny. To give a man credit - he wrote all of that all by himself. Very few people have been born who can do this much.

For example, the impression one gets about the successors of Romans - the Byzantine empire, is that they were often incompetent, corrupt and scheming. However, one only need to look at the fact that Byzantines survived till 12th century while the Roman story was over by 5th century to admit that the Byzantine empire was a durable state. Just for the sake of comparison, Indian democracy is not even 100 years old.