The End of the Roman Empire

I think we are going through a process of moral, ethical change that is more analogous to the Reformation than to anything you can get in Roman history. But I think that Rome provides us with a kind of enduring model. The Chinese Empire will disintegrate, be reconstituted, have kind of barbarians rule it and so on. And yet in a sense always remain China. We do not in the modern world in the West have a sense of there being an entity called China endures.