La ruina de la civilización antigua

How can the history of the 3rd century help the citizens of the 21st century to understand the reality in which they live and to face the dangers that it hides? Published shortly after the First World War, the great Italian intellectual Guglielmo Ferrero gave an account of the terrible questions that were being raised in the Europe of his time in this lucid and stimulating essay that, almost a century later, has retained all its clarity and relevance. . In The Ruin of Ancient Civilization, the author invites us to reflect on the contemporary world through an in-depth rereading of ancient Rome at the time of its fall, analyzing the mechanisms of culture and government that have operated since then in the long tradition. of western politics. His use of History as a flashlight that illuminates the present has not lost one iota of relevance, and rereading Ferrero today, in the midst of the deep crisis we are going through, is listening to a convinced European, sure that Europe would be saved or perish. definitely, and that at the turning point between these two possible futures, the question of the shape of political regimes and their sincerity with respect to their founding principles would be a core issue.