Introduction / Myron Gilmore -- Edward Gibbon: the historian of the Roman empire / David P. Jordan -- Gibbon: the formation of mind and character / Martine Watson Brownley -- Gibbon on civil war and rebellion in the decline of the Roman empire / G.W. Bowersock -- Gibbon's views on culture and society in the fifth and sixth centuries / Peter Brown -- Gibbon and Byzantium / Steven Runciman -- Gibbon on Muhammad / Bernard Lewis -- Gibbon from an Italian point of view / Arnaldo Momigliano -- Tradition and experience: the idea of decline from Bruni to Gibbon / Peter Burke -- Between Machiavelli and Hume: Gibbon as civic humanist and philosophical historian / J.G.A. Pocock -- Edward Gibbon: contraria sunt complementa / Stephen R. Graubard -- From the decline of erudition to the decline of nations: Gibbon's response to French thought / Jean Starobinski -- Civilization and barbarism in Gibbon's history / François Furet -- Edward Gibbon: historien-philosophe / Frank E. Manuel -- Gibbon's humor / John Clive -- Gibbon and the history of art / Francis Haskell -- and The impact of French literature on Gibbon / Robert Shackleton -- Gibbon and the church historians / Owen Chadwick -- Toward the Decline and fall: Gibbon's other historical interests / Giuseppe Giarrizzo -- With Gibbon in Puerto Rico / Reuben A. Brower