In this riveting history, Kyle Harper shows that disease and environmental conditions were not just instrumental in the final collapse of the Roman Empire but were serious problems for centuries before the fall. Harper's compelling and cautionary tale documents the deadly plagues, fevers, and other pestilences that ravaged the population time and again, resulting in far more deaths than ever caused by enemy forces. One wonders - like Edward Gibbon - how the empire managed to last as long as it did.--Eric H. Cline, author of 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed sakriti opis