(12-09-2016, 05:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I take your point about the quote; that was just a guess on my part. Although it's difficult to imagine what "islands" he was taking about. In the Black or Caspian Sea somewhere? Or somewhere much further away, I guess. And I do remember that the Goths and other tribes invaded Rome because of pressure put on them by the Huns further east, although this was before Attila's time.
Still, my meaning of "islands in the ocean" as a metaphor does describe the increasing social and economic conditions of the Romans in the 3rd and 4th centuries. There's no doubt that historically Rome was declining. Barbarians had been putting pressure on it all along, and it was like in today's south-western America where the outsiders were becoming part of the inside. By 400 AD at least, most of the border guards themselves were originally barbarians.
Empires and other reigns do rise and fall in cycles historically; none ever remains in power "indefinitely," and it's largely because imperial power has its limits, and its power waxes and wanes over time.
I myself have been an adherent of the belief that the Romans simply declined and that is why they fell, and indeed many historians have hewed to it. Kim's work, however, has me questioning it, and wondering if a tendency to play down the Huns' role has been due to Eurocentrism, a belief that Europe is better than everyone else and Europe can only fall if it defeats itself. It also leads me to question the ideas that Rome was weaker in the 4th century or that outsiders joining its army brought it down, as on pp. 47-48, Kim argues that Rome was at its strongest in this period, and the contingent of Germanic and Alanic troops were no less loyal or skilled, and in the Eastern Empire at least it was a time of prosperity. It was simply that the Romans began to face far more menacing opponents than they had faced before that caused their fall in the West.
Your points have received a lot of attention from historians, so I hope to provide an opportunity to look at an alternative view which is at least as credible and backed up by historical sources, and is published by a reliable printing company: The Cambridge University Press. If ever you get the chance, I heartily recommend picking up Kim's book. If you can't afford to buy it (I can't), then I recommend trying to get it at the library, and if your library doesn't carry it to look at getting it on interlibrary loan, which is generally free. Interlibrary loan is just where if your library system doesn't carry the book, the library can borrow the book from another library system and let you check it out.
I enjoyed this discussion. Thank you for it.
