Are We Rome: Cullen Murphy

I had heard part of Cullen Murphy's interview on my local NPR affliate, KUOW. The show looked at various parllels that were explored in his book. The book was a quick read, maybe about 220 pages of actual text, versus about 20 pages of well researched and cited endnotes. The book explored various parallels such as the privatization of government functions, and thus equating that with a growing culture of corruption, as well the inability to field an army without resorting to recruiting less desirable folks and also lowering standards. The parallels are striking, but again we are comparing a Bronze Age civilization with a modern one. I learned quite a bit about ancient Roman history that I hadn't before. Plus it was neat to realize that Trier, a city in Germany that I had visited on a Roman ruin tour, was once a site of an imperial palace. Another interesting fact was how the number of shipwrecks decreased after a peak during the Roman empire thus signaling a decrease of trade after the "fall".

Fun quick read...