Introduction: A snapshot and a story
Decline in the Roman Republic
The republic of violence and the empire of peace
Manufacturing the Golden Age of Trajan
Renewal without decline : the Antonines and Severans
Decline and false renewal : the third century crisis
Decline, renewal, and the invention of Christian progress
Roman renewal versus Christian progress
When renewal fails to arrive
The loss of the Roman West and the Christian future
Justinian, Roman progress, and the death of the Western Roman Empire
Rome, the Arabs, and iconoclasm
Old Rome, new Rome, and future Rome
The retrenchment of one Roman Empire, the resurgence of another
The captures of Constantinople
The fall of Roman Constantinople and the end of Roman renewal
Roman renewal after the fall
Conclusion: Roman decline and fall in contemporary America.
