It seems that even through you admit that historians who voice the standard view don’t see the barbarian invasion as the sole cause you still argue against that strawman in your post.
The fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome), c. 376-476, was the process of decline in the Western Roman Empire in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided into several successor polities. The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control over its Western provinces; modern historians posit factors including the effectiveness and numbers of the army, the health and numbers of the Roman population, the strength of the economy, the competence of the Emperors, the internal struggles for power, the religious changes of the period, and the efficiency of the civil administration. Increasing pressure from invading barbarians outside Roman culture also contributed greatly to the collapse. The reasons for the collapse are major subjects of the historiography of the ancient world and they inform much modern discourse on state failure.[1][2][3]
In 376, unmanageable numbers of Goths and other non-Roman people, fleeing from the Huns, entered the Empire. In 395, after winning two destructive civil wars, Theodosius I died, leaving a collapsing field army, and the Empire, still plagued by Goths, divided between the warring ministers of his two incapable sons. Further barbarian groups crossed the Rhine and other frontiers and, like the Goths, were not exterminated, expelled or subjugated. The armed forces of the Western Empire became few and ineffective, and despite brief recoveries under able leaders, central rule was never effectively consolidated.
It seems “barbarians” are explicitly mentioned as one of the influential and clear causes of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The second paragraph in the quote isn’t a random paragraph from the article; it’s the second paragraph of the article itself. Causes like “the economy / population / competence of the Emperors declined” are pretty vague. They seem more like parts of an interdependent process than clear causes.
I don’t want to imply other historians only look at barbarians! But I’ve never encountered a clear theory that properly explains why the late-Roman / Early Medieval Period is such a unique and devastating period of decline. The short story is “stuff was bad and barbarians invaded”, the long story is “here is a long list of everything that went wrong”. But things like “they had incompetent Emperors” seem like bad explanations to me: all periods had bad rulers and they didn’t cause 1000 years of decline and stagnation.
Based on that first chart you’re also looking at the trade volue, and presumably GDP, of the empire dropping to 40% of it’s original value in the span of just 100 years between 200AD and 300AD and continuing to plummet almost as badly after that. That chart seems to show an economic rot starting centuries before Rome started seriously loosing wars.
I’ll note that the inflection point does largely line up with the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. Far from a complete theory, but also easy to imagine something important was lost in the transition—chief candidate among them a formerly strong tradition for not transfering power via military coups and political assassinations. Your question is more concerned with “what reversed the progress” rather than “what finally put Rome out of it’s missery”, so we’re probably looking much much earlier than the actual fall.
It seems that even through you admit that historians who voice the standard view don’t see the barbarian invasion as the sole cause you still argue against that strawman in your post.
From the Wikipedia article on the Fall of the Western Roman Empire:
It seems “barbarians” are explicitly mentioned as one of the influential and clear causes of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The second paragraph in the quote isn’t a random paragraph from the article; it’s the second paragraph of the article itself. Causes like “the economy / population / competence of the Emperors declined” are pretty vague. They seem more like parts of an interdependent process than clear causes.
I don’t want to imply other historians only look at barbarians! But I’ve never encountered a clear theory that properly explains why the late-Roman / Early Medieval Period is such a unique and devastating period of decline. The short story is “stuff was bad and barbarians invaded”, the long story is “here is a long list of everything that went wrong”. But things like “they had incompetent Emperors” seem like bad explanations to me: all periods had bad rulers and they didn’t cause 1000 years of decline and stagnation.
Based on that first chart you’re also looking at the trade volue, and presumably GDP, of the empire dropping to 40% of it’s original value in the span of just 100 years between 200AD and 300AD and continuing to plummet almost as badly after that. That chart seems to show an economic rot starting centuries before Rome started seriously loosing wars.
I’ll note that the inflection point does largely line up with the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. Far from a complete theory, but also easy to imagine something important was lost in the transition—chief candidate among them a formerly strong tradition for not transfering power via military coups and political assassinations. Your question is more concerned with “what reversed the progress” rather than “what finally put Rome out of it’s missery”, so we’re probably looking much much earlier than the actual fall.