Lessons from the decline of Roman Empire ..

Edward Gibbon, historian and author. (1737-1794)

Edward Gibbon, (1737-1794) in the "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (publ. 1776), gives his penetrating insight to the five reasons why Rome fell:

1. The rapid increase of divorce

2. The craze for entertainment

3. The building of gigantic armaments

4. Decadence of the people and 

5. Decay of religion

Very insightful points indeed ..

For a more detailed reading from contemporary sources of the collapse of the Roman empire, click here .. 

The sad thing is humans will never learn from history and keep committing the same mistakes even in this modern advanced age ..

The western world presently from Gibbon's historical study of the Roman Empire, made in 1776 (240 years back in time, ie. just when United States of America, USA, was born of extreme bloodshed and pain to the natives) is moving to degradation and decadence. The buildup of armaments, nuclear weapons, powerful navies are all examples of this and point to this grave future awaiting those nations.

The strength, vitality and depth of the culturally strong and spiritually deep Indian culture is evident from the fact that we have withstood the test of time for the past seven millennia and the onslaught of the perverse western culture over the past two millennia.

We have assimilated the best practices and strains of culture from around the world, from our invaders too and have denounced the worst. The invaders have all finally and shamelessly given up and merged with the rich native Indian culture. But we cannot yet be complacent, as the temptation for us to repeat history is too strong ..

Some of the poorly read, badly informed and the "unfortunate" among us, strive to settle on these "western shores", let us empathise with them ..

George .. (credit also to my friend and senior colleague George Ninan for sharing some of his research and insight here)