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https://nationalinterest.in/volcanic-activity-and-the-fall-of-the-gupta-empire-8c9b463d1663 Anirudh Kanisetti   How does one explain the collapse of polities that have been around for hundreds of years? W hen Edward Gibbon tried to answer this in relation to the Roman Empire in his astounding 18th century  History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,  he put it in starkly anthropocentric terms. To Gibbon (that great proponent of English stereotypes of what “Roman-ness” meant) a debauched or pusillanimous emperor could set into motion events that bring the whole edifice tumbling down. The infamous stereotype of Nero fiddling as Rome burned, for example, has been decisively  put to rest . Image Source:  Wikimedia Commons Recent historical scholarship, however, has called into question many of Gibbon’s stereotypes of “good” and “bad” emperors. Especially in the late 20th century, new archaeological studies began to question the assumption that Rome was some...