Why Rome Fell - 210 reasons

[Kai]

Some are contradictory, such as totalitarianism and excessive freedom.

Sure they are contradictory, hilarious and silly at times. Just to clarify they are not what Alexander Demandt advocates. These 210 reasons are reasons he found in other people's works and he collected them in this list. This particular book of his is titled "Der Fall Roms. Die Auflösung des römischen Reiches im Urteil der Nachwelt" - the Fall of Rome. The Dissolution of the Roman Empire in later assessments. It is thus a study entirely devoted to the reception of the Fall of Rome by later generations, not a study on the fall itself. As such, one should not be too surprised seeing rather strange reasons in the list.