What The Roman Empire Trend Tells Us About Ourselves

And that brand has notably infiltrated The United States, a country that has often been compared to the Roman Empire, and our patriotism (which is arguably destructive) can be compared to how the ancient Romans felt about Rome, or at least how it was taught to us. According to a 2007 story in The Atlantic, Cullen Murphy, author of Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America, says there are six areas that create a compelling argument that ancient Rome and the U.S. are alike: “an exaggerated sense of self importance coupled with a myopic view of the world; a military overstretched and alienated from civilian society; an imprudent rush toward the privatization of public services; a mounting struggle to police borders; and, finally, the inherent impossibility of managing an environment of such burgeoning complexity.”