Marco Formisano and Therese Fuhrer, eds., with the assistance of Anna-Lena Stock, Decadence: “Decline and Fall” or “Other Antiquity”? Bibliothek der klassischen Altertumswissenschaften (n.F.) 2. Reihe 140. Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag Winter, 2014. 348 pp. ISBN 9783825361624. €56,00. The editors of this stimulating volume revisit the paradigm of late-antique decadence and decline in a fresh and unique way. Rather than revising the works of revisionists like Peter Brown, Marco Formisano and Therese Fuhrer explore the reception history of the paradigm in western culture. This collection of papers represents the first fruits of their labor. It also is the first volume in a new series, “The Library of the Other Antiquity,” which promotes the study of late antiquity from interdisciplinary approaches. Formisano's introduction states the goal of the volume and the series: “The perception of late antiquity as a decadent age, as wrong as it might have been, has been highly productive not only for the history of scholarship and ideas, but for literary imagination. Late antiquity has been for western civilization the period of decadence par excellence … late antique decadence, taking on the function of a paradigm or metaphor rather than a historical age in its own right, has played a fundamental role in shaping modern Europe's identity” (11, italics original). The 15 articles that follow are revised versions of papers delivered at conferences on the topic in Leeds (2010) and Berlin (2011). Two thirds of the articles deal with the reception history of the paradigm of decadence and decline. The rest examine the late-antique sources directly. The first section of the volume contains articles on “Decadence in Antiquity.” In “Das Interesse am menschlichen Scheitern – Antike Konstruktionen des ‘Niedergangs’ einer Kultur,” Therese Fuhrer argues that the paradigm of decline is rooted in the classical sources and was later recycled by patristic authors to serve their own theological agendas. For Gillian Clark, however, Augustine was not one of these authors. In “Fragile Brilliance – Augustine, Decadence, and ‘Other Antiquity’,” Clark contends that Augustine did not compose The …