Gibbon’s writing style was praised by contemporary writers including the philosopher David Hume, Adam Smith, and Horace Walpole. His scholarship is very thorough, setting a standard for the time. Gibbon utilized all the available resources available to him and incorporated extensive footnotes and references into his volumes. There are mistakes, of course: some because of his lack of information or assumptions he made. There are also some biases, particularly with respect to religion, but these blemishes do not detract from the overall quality of this important work.
Gibbon begins volume one with a summary of the period from Augustus to Domitian, gets down to detail with Trajan, and moves forward through the life of the Caesars until the empire is no more. Here and in future posts I will identify and discuss the factors he cites as the causes of the collapse of the empire.