August 10, 2007

'Are We Rome?'

The relationship between America and Rome predates the founding of the American republic. Many of the leaders of the American Revolution were raised on the works of Cicero, Virgil, and other luminaries of the Roman scene. Perhaps more pointedly, Edward Gibbon published the first volume of History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1776. But is America doomed to follow in Rome's footsteps?

"Rome and America are the most powerful actors in their worlds, by many orders of