I'm reading How the Irish Saved Western Civilization. The first fourth of the book is a short description of the decline of the Roman empire and the descent into the dark ages. It happened amazingly fast. A few decades.
The Irish did save civilization. But the guy who wrote that book is unfortunately unwilling to admit that it was Irish and Anglo-Saxon MISSIONARIES who did the job. I.e., Europe was saved by the reintroduction of Christian civilization from the furthest fringes of Europe.
It's too bad he gets it wrong like that.
Read it. I gave my copy to an Irish cousin who went back home rather than become an illegal immigrant.
I found it rather dry and difficult to read.
I'm still trying to comprehend about the monasticism and the author's connections of that and the eventual rise with Western Civilization. I mean, I get it, and I sort of don't get it.
A nation and an idea thought not worth defending will, well, not be defended. If I am not mistaken, either Edward Gibbon or Will Durant stated that all civilizations are born Stoic and die Epicurean. We are certainly well beyond the Stoic stage where Oprah, trivialities, pop culture have replaced pride and knowledge of our once great republic.
At the end, there were too few Romans who cared.