Clifford Ando re-frames the issue of beginnings and endings by reexamining “decline and fall” in the works of two eighteenth-century authors, Montesquieu and William Robertson. Clifford Ando's research focuses on the history of religion, law and government in the ancient world. His first work centered on the history of political culture in the provinces of the Roman empire, and he continues to write and advise on topics related to provincial administration, the relationship between imperial power and local cultural change, and the form and structure of ancient empires.