In his blog (acoup), Bret Devereaux had a decent sized three part series examining this debate. He mostly comes down on the "decline and fall" side (especially

In his blog (acoup), Bret Devereaux had a decent sized three part series examining this debate. He mostly comes down on the "decline and fall" side (especially when it comes to the living conditions of people in the region), but does give a fair shake to the "change and continuity" argument. Part 1: https://acoup.blog/2022/01/14/collections-rome-decline-and-fall-part-i-words/ https://acoup.blog/2022/01/14/collections-rome-decline-and-f...