Fates of Romes

Abstract

Kyle Harper's book The Fate of Rome marks the thunderous entry of Nature into the world of ancient history of the twenty-first century. This is not the first book devoted to questions of climate and diseases in the ancient world, but its publication nonetheless represents a turning point. From now on, whether they work on political, social, economic, or even religious history, ancient historians will no longer be able to ignore these factors in their own writings. That is not to say that all the theses of the book, especially its natural determinism, should be accepted uncritically.