Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World, 115) by Walter Scheidel (PDF)

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The gripping story of how the end of the Roman Empire was the beginning of the modern worldThe fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history. But in this groundbreaking book, Walter Scheidel argues that Rome’s dramatic collapse was actually the best thing that ever happened, clearing the path for Europe’s economic rise and the creation of the modern age. Ranging across the entire premodern world, Escape from Rome offers new answers to some of the biggest questions in history: Why did the Roman Empire appear? Why did nothing like it ever return to Europe? And, above all, why did Europeans come to dominate the world?In an absorbing narrative that begins with ancient Rome but stretches far beyond it, from Byzantium to China and from Genghis Khan to Napoleon, Scheidel shows how the demise of Rome and the enduring failure of empire-building on European soil ensured competitive fragmentation between and within states. This rich diversity encouraged political, economic, scientific, and technological breakthroughs that allowed Europe to surge ahead while other parts of the world lagged behind, burdened as they were by traditional empires and predatory regimes that lived by conquest. It wasn’t until Europe “escaped” from Rome that it launched an economic transformation that changed the continent and ultimately the world.What has the Roman Empire ever done for us? Fall and go away.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Finalist for the PROSE Award in Archaeology and Ancient History, Association of American Publishers””One of the Evening Standard’s Best Books of 2019″”One of the Financial Times’ Best Books of 2019: Economics””Scheidel marshals his facts with verve and force . . . . the abiding impression left by reading this book is not that human progress was inevitable – even at such a bloody cost – but that it was profoundly fragile.”—Robert Colvile, The Times”Scheidel makes a bracing case, backed by every counterfactual tool of contemporary scholarship, against resurgent European empire at any time. . . . What did the Romans do for us? Scheidel does not give the usual answers.”—Peter Stothard, Financial Times”Walter Scheidel’s Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity is an outstanding, epic history of the fall of the Roman Empire and rise of the European West.”—Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard”Escape from Rome deserves to be taken very seriously . . . . this is a fiercely intelligent, closely argued book.”—Peter Thonemann, Times Literary Supplement”Thought-provoking. . . . Impressive.”—P.G. Wallace, Choice Reviews”A challenging, detailed and thought-provoking study of how the end of Rome benefited the West rather than the reverse.”—Richard Owen, The Tablet”Fascinating and arresting.”—Stephen Davies, Reason Magazine”A tour de force of world history.”—Tony Jones, The Christian Century”Insightful. . . an outstanding modern summation of a strand of research which goes back at least as far as Montesquieu and David Hume.”—Mark Koyama, Journal of Economic Literature”A sweeping academic survey comparing empires and eras. . . . Escape From Rome makes bold claims about the nature of empire and the roots of the modern world and backs them up with thoughtful analysis.”—Dominic Lynch, America”Escape from Rome is a well-written survey of an enormous literature on the history of the world. . . . It is fun and interesting to read. . . . An admirable book.”—Peter Temin, EH.Net”A stimulating, thought-provoking work that will be of interest to professional and lay readers alike.”—Paolo Tedesco, Jacobin”his book is a monument of sophisticated argument backed by an enormous amount of empirical data. It is an instant classic, one of the great books of the last quarter century.”—European Journal of Sociology, John A. Hall”Consistently fascinating. . . .[Scheidel’s] explanations are ingenious, ranging from traditions regulating inheritance to the respective topographies of Europe and Asia.”—Steven Simon, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy Review “Escape from Rome presents a fascinating account of why modernity appeared first in western Europe―it was precisely the failure of the Roman project and not its legacy that allowed the emergence of a decentralized and competitive system that became the ultimate platform for modern economic growth. A challenging and counterintuitive hypothesis.”―Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History and the Last Man”Walter Scheidel has done more to reveal the hidden patterns of human existence than any other historian of our era. Quite simply, he has no peer. Erudite, enlightening, and wonderfully provocative, Escape from Rome is destined to become a classic.”―Amanda Foreman, author of A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War”If a new Roman Empire had appeared in medieval Europe, it would have aborted modernity and everything would be different today! This is the remarkable, but tightly argued, conclusion of Walter Scheidel’s virtuoso exploration of counterfactual world histories.”―David Christian, author of Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History”A bold, provocative, and brilliant book in which Walter Scheidel does not just ask big questions―but sets out to answer them too. And better still, it’s immensely enjoyable to read as well.”―Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads: A New History of the World”Lucid and provocative, this book makes an iconoclastic case for why Europe’s luckiest break was losing its only internal empire. A must-read for anyone curious about the long shadow of Rome.”―Sheilagh Ogilvie, author of The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis”Astonishingly learned, hugely ambitious, and deeply thoughtful, the indefatigable Walter Scheidel has written another innovative and provocative book that will turn global history upside down.”―Joel Mokyr, author of A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy”In a masterpiece of global history spanning over two millennia, Walter Scheidel tells us why western Europe remained politically fragmented after the collapse of Rome, why the rest of the world gravitated toward empire, and why that enduring political contrast explains the origins of sustained economic growth. A fascinating book.”―Philip T. Hoffman, author of Why Did Europe Conquer the World? “Escape from Rome is a brilliant and very important book by a great scholar at the top of his powers. This is a wholly convincing and innovative account, logically driven and based on stunning scholarship. It will become a classic.”―John A. Hall, coauthor of The Paradox of Vulnerability: States, Nationalism, and the Financial Crisis About the Author Walter Scheidel is the Dickason Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Classics and History, and a Kennedy-Grossman Fellow in Human Biology at Stanford University. His many books include The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century (Princeton). He lives in Palo Alto, California. Twitter @WalterScheidel Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Some fun meta-analysis in this book. Most of it will seem familiar if you’ve read much European history. But the author does a good job of zeroing in on the main factor that set Western Europe on the path to modernity: Ceaseless warfare after the fall of the Roman Empire. As the author notes, “Humanity paid a staggering price for modernity.” Because long-ago generations paid that terrible price, we now enjoy greater levels of prosperity (and far longer lifespans) than most people could have dreamed of even a few hundred years ago.When the western Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th century CE, its former provinces devolved to successor Germanic kingdoms — none of which was strong enough to defeat all the others and re-establish hegemonic empire. Instead, over the next several hundred years, these kingdoms slowly coalesced into the nation states of modern Europe. As they grew larger (and impinged on one another’s territory), each state continually sought competitive advantage against the others through ever-better weapons technology, expanded trade, and overseas expansion. Which set off a chain reaction of innovation that led to modern science and the Industrial Revolution.Throughout this book, the author compares the fissile character of Western Europe to the more stable regimes of empires, especially imperial China. Empires clearly are more peaceful, but they also tend to resist change and become heavily invested in maintaining the status quo.The author sets out an array of interesting questions and counterfactuals: Could the rise of Rome have been derailed by other powers? (In the early days, yes. But by the time of the Second Punic War, it had become unstoppable.) Could an outside power have re-established empire in Western Europe after Rome fell? (Very unlikely given its geography and distance from major powers. The Mongols, for instance, had a long-term impact on Eastern Europe, but Western Europe was probably too much of a stretch).And the most interesting counterfactual of all: What if the Roman Empire had never existed? The author concludes that it might not have made much difference in the end. We wouldn’t have romance languages or Christianity, but other languages and religions would have taken their place.This conclusion may seem odd given historians’ fascination with ancient Rome. But in fact modernization took off most spectacularly in areas where Roman influence was less pronounced. The Industrial Revolution began in Britain, where Roman dominance arrived later (and collapsed sooner) than on the Continent.So despite its fascinating history, Rome was just another empire that came and (fortunately) went. As the author notes, “the Roman Empire made modern development possible by going away and never coming back.”

⭐For a simple and unoriginal thesis, this book is far too long. Would have been better as an OpEdSad to say Escape from Rome doesn’t even come close to his masterful The Great LevelerBut Scheidel writes well, his range of knowledge is impressive and command of sources pretty dam good

⭐The basic premise is simple, and obvious to me: the fragmented geography of Europe made for fragmented governance, beginning with the Nile and Tigris/Euphrates river valleys surrounded by desert. Rome was an exception because it was one of many small city states which were bound to unify locally while still isolated from the Greek and other powers of the day, and its isolation allowed it to eventually develop enough to take on the powers of the day. China, on the other hand, had no natural borders and barriers and could not develop as small isolated city states, and a single unifying empire was inevitable. The fragmentation model led to increased competition which was the birth of the Industrial Revolution.But oh my! it’s a hard slog. Some points are belabored so thoroughly that it’s hard to not skim ahead, and there is useful and interesting information throughout. Maybe this is an academic slant, to buttress your argument with as many examples as possible; it gets tedious for the layman.There are also some mercantilist points which this non-economist wonders at. Page 387-388 says that the British military demand for uniforms during the Napoleonic wars stimulated cotton production, as if the soldiers would not have needed clothing had they remained civilians. There are other unseen unreferences: all those navy sailors could have been merchant sailors, or stayed on their farms or working in mines, producing resources cheaper than in actuality, stimulating the economy better than mercantilist central planning. The idea that firearms demand stimulated iron and steel production has the same flaws: would civilians not have found a use for all that iron and steel, and if not, would not the resources have been used more efficiently elsewhere?Mercantilism is just central planning by another name, and less efficient than free markets. I find it hard to believe that any war, diverting so many people and resources into producing so much which is literally fired into oblivion or sunk in oceans, is in any way better than producing things which people actually use in daily life, whether for personal use or to produce other things.

⭐The Fall of Rome is one of the most re-done areas of Western History. This is not another one of those. Instead, in this book the author discusses the effect of the Fall of Rome, and the unique aspects of Europe as opposed to South Asia or China that never led to a large Empire reconstituting itself after Rome fell (in the West). Empires rose and fell in all these areas, but Western Europe remained fragmented. This in turn led to a fragmentation of authority that prevented the leaders from stopping the Renaissance , the Age of Exploration, and eventually the industrial revolution. For example, Columbus and others explorers of the age felt free to shop their ideas around to other governments when their own governments failed to back their vision – something that was not possible in, say, China. That the rise of our modern world having been pioneered in Europe is due to its fragmented geography, culture, and history rather than any type of cultural or ethnic exceptionalism is a powerful thesis. The author has a considerable amount of research and mathematical data to back up his work. Not light reading, but overall a very interesting book on the why and where of the origins of Western Civilization and the modern world. Definite recommendation to the serious historian.

⭐This very remarkable book makes the case that without polycentrism, there would have been no modernity. Its author Walter Scheidel is the Dickason Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Classics and History, and a Kennedy-Grossman Fellow in Human Biology at Stanford UniversityScheidel points out that “smaller states with functioning representative institutions were able to impose higher tax rates than larger absolutist states.” By 1700 Britain and the Netherlands had the highest tax rates in Europe, probably in the world, this when they were the two most successful states in the world.In Britain, the pioneer state of modernity, “law and politics, war, and mercantilist protectionism. Together, they created an environment that was singularly conducive to productive experimentation and sustainable economic development. Independence – embodied in formal sovereignty as well as institutional autonomy – was paramount: without it, none of these elements could have been present in a comparable manner.”Scheidel stresses how important national independence was to Britain’s advance: “Sovereignty also helped England protect other features that arguably contributed to economic development, such as the superior physical and cognitive condition of workers that owed much to improvements in nutrition sustained by rising agricultural productivity, to job training, and to Poor Laws that helped feed the labor force. Independence ensured that all these benefits accrued to the English population: there were no countervailing modes of coercive redistribution – such as transfers to a distant imperial center – that could have interfered.”Scheidel asks whether the profits from slavery really were responsible for industrial take-off and noted that profits from (all) trade were only a few per cent of Britain’s GDP and that the investment actually devoted to early industrialisation was not very large.Protectionism achieved innovation. “In Britain’s case, one of the most potent effects of interstate conflict on economic progress was indirect: it encouraged protectionist strictures that prompted creative experimentation and technological breakthroughs. … the protectionist systems promoted manufacturing in order to add value and substitute for imports, as well as trade – ideally conducted by one’s own countrymen – to sell goods abroad.”As Scheidel observes, “the fact that England had escaped most thoroughly from Roman imperial traditions helped it establish durable local units of government and political representation. Later, the break with papal Rome under Henry VIII made England a pioneer in creating a national church.”Common law, by contrast with Roman law, conduced to progress: “the contrast between common law traditions, in which judges referred among competing lawyers and layman juries, and continental courts, dominated by expert judges and prone to enhance top-down control by the central state, is worth noting.” Further, Roman law was very patriarchal, giving greater powers to fathers. Common law by contrast stressed the consensual and contractual nature of marriage.

⭐A fascinating book about one the economic development first appeared in north-western Europe and not in other parts of the world. The author makes the very persuasive case that this was due to European polycentrism, that is to say Europe’s division into a multitude of competing polities. This case has been made before. But what Scheidel does is to show that it could not have happened anywhere else; and that the dream of so many Europeans, from Justinian to today’s European Union, of a politically united Europe, not only did not happen (of course), but could not have happened. And that is why Europe took off.

⭐Extremely interesting book but virtually ruined by horrendous writing. His desire to use pompous language and his hatred of full stops made it a real test of endurance.

⭐In case the competition between European nations was the driving force resulting in European world dominance, what had changed? Why has Europe today declined? The competition remains.

⭐This book does not start well. The introduction is in a typical long-winded, academic, can`t get to the point format. But if the reader can tough it out, things improve dramatically. Scheidel wants to address the question; how and why did Europe burst out of the Malthusian trap, and transform itself into the modern era. Schiedel`s main theme is that Europe`s national divisions enabled competition to take place in Europe. This competition between European states provoked innovations in all aspects of society. The massive change that took place in Europe resulted in new forms of; weapons, warfare, religions, governance, legal systems, technology, literacy, education, consumer products, agriculture, and of course, the colonization of the New World. Schiedel believes none of these social transformations, would have taken place under a one rule empire. The extinction of the Roman Empire allowed Europe to embrace change and develop new and modern methods. Throughout the book, Scheidel compares events in a divided Europe, to what was happening under a monopolistic rule of an empire. Scheidel looks to China for examples of monopoly rule. But other world empires are also examined. The reader will enjoy a thought-provoking journey of economic and political history. Yes, there will be a lot of points of contention. But on such a wide-ranging topic, one expects areas of disagreement. In fact, this is what makes the book enjoyable. The reader is constantly bobbing and weaving in and out of agreement with the author.The concluding chapter was a bit of a disappointment. Let’s face it, these exact issues are currently raging all over Europe and the rest of the World. Brexit, Catalonia separation, Hong Kong protests, and Wexit threats in Canada are just a few examples. Breaking off relations with a large monopolistic government is a front and centre issue. Will the power of laissez-faire economics make a comeback? Or will state-run, monopolistic big-government policies continue to dominate? In the conclusion of the book, Scheidel avoided these current issues. Overall, a very interesting read.

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