Looking for something similar in scope and size like Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but that starts off pre-Republic, the formation of the republic, and then the formation of the empire. Needs to be something written before 1945.

Livy, History of Rome?

I don't think there's a 'peer' to Gibbons, but I also don't think it is good history per se. Many historians would say that, while you can learn a lot from reading the book, Gibbon's arguments often aren't ones that modern historical scholarship finds convincing.

The Christianity thesis is interesting, and deserves to be considered and kept in mind, but according the little reading I've done on the fall of the Western Empire, economic and military factors are given far more weight in his analyses than they probably should be. He also largely ignores that the real/stronger Roman Empire, Byzantium, survived as Christian for another thousand years...

There's also a dominant strain of modern scholarship that argues that the late 5th century (events such as the sack of Rome in 455 by Genseric and the deposition of Romulus Augustus by Odoacer in 476) is over-emphasized as a decisive break with the past in Western European civilization.

There are some good alternative/other side analyses as well today, like 'The Goths and Vandals: The History and Legacy of the Barbarians Who Sacked Rome in the 5th Century CE' which provide some alternatives to, say, the traditional Roman accounts. A lot of podcasts etc. also.

90 bull said:

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The history of Rome podcast is solid.

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I was about to post this.