Edward Gibbon (1734-1794) wrote a book that inadvertently raises the question of whether English prose style can be, or even should be, an end in itself. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire encapsulates - in a very large capsule - his idea that history is "little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."
- Clive James, Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts
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