The fall of Rome is often seen as the gateway to the Dark Ages, but was the post-imperial world truly as bleak as it’s ...

Updated at 1:13 p.m. ET on May 27, 2025. T he warlords who sacked Rome did not intend to doom Western Europe to centuries of ignorance. It was not a foreseeable consequence of their actions. The ...

How often do you think about the Dark Ages? The period may have as much contemporary resonance as Ancient Rome. By Jonn Elledge Last week, when someone told me they were working on a project about the ...

Finally, Rome was too weak to resist the barbarian onslaught. Revisionists say the Dark Ages that followed were not so bad. Archaeological evidence, ...