Alaric the Goth. By Douglas Boin.W.W. Norton; 272 pages; $26.95 and £19.99. THE SMOKE began to rise above the orange-tiled roofs of the eternal city on August 24th 410AD. The watchmen had not ...

The sack of Rome by Alaric and his Goths has exerted an outsize influence on the Western imagination. It was a devastating event, and sent psychological aftershocks across the empire. On the night ...

Douglas Boin joins us now. His book is called "Alaric The Goth: An Outsider's History Of The Fall Of Rome." Welcome. DOUGLAS BOIN: Lulu, thank you for the invitation. This is great.

At the time of the infamous sack of Rome, Alaric—the warrior-chief of a Germanic nation—was in fact trying to regain his high rank as a Roman officer.

A review of Alaric the Goth: An Outsider’s History of the Fall of Rome, by Douglas Boin. In 410 AD, Alaric I, King of the Visigoths, breached Rome’s walls, likely with the aid of collaborators, and ...