Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)

Edward Gibbon was a British essayist, historian and minor politician. His most important and influential work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, to criticial and commerical success. It is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its polemical criticism of organized religion.