On Wednesday I picked up Edward Gibbon's classic again after many years:

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

written at the end of the 18th century, in a partly factual but then again rapturous style of the Englishman, who looks at the English empire in the time of burgeoning liberalism, 100 years after the glorious revolution, and sees his own time in the future perspective through the lens of Roman decline. Here is a link to an audio book