Peter Heather recently wrote a very similar history which I found to be very good: http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Roman-Empire-History-Barbarians/dp/0195159543 http

Peter Heather recently wrote a very similar history which I found to be very good: http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Roman-Empire-History-Barbarians/dp/0195159543 http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Roman-Empire-History-Barbarians/d... Heather argues that the Roman empire was still internally healthy, but that increasing pressure from the Persians and the European tribes eventually overwhelmed the empire. Archaeological evidence indicates that the population densities of the barbarian regions may have increased by a factor of two or three since the early days of the empire. The population was larger and more sophisticated, and thus harder to handle. But just this year Adrian Goldsworthy has written a book countering the new revisionist view that Heather and Williams present ( http://www.amazon.com/How-Rome-Fell-Death-Superpower/dp/0300137192/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3ANQZITBNHHWQ&colid=CGPD7EZVFNE6 http://www.amazon.com/How-Rome-Fell-Death-Superpower/dp/0300... ). Goldsworthy argues that the barbarian threat really wasn't that much greater, and that the empire collapsed from within, due to civil war and political strife. I haven't read Goldsworthy's book yet, but it's on my list.