“Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh, Mr. Gibbon?” These words, attributed to both King George III and the Duke of Cumberland, make mocking reference to Edward Gibbon and his massive work, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”
One wonders what these gentlemen might have thought of some historians of the 20th century. Along with his political involvements and defeating Nazism, Winston Churchill wrote a shelf full of books, most of them histories, and for a time earned a living as a journalist as well. Will and Ariel Durant gave readers the 11-volume set of “The Story of Civilization,” which weighs in at 36.6 pounds. More recent disciples of the muse Clio, like Stephen Ambrose and David McCullough, composed numerous histories and brought the past to life for the rest of us.
