I was checking out the recommended reading list looking for a book on the subject and only found Goldsworthy's How Rome Fell which I promptly looked up on Amazon. I found it has some significant criticism in the reviews and wondered what other books were out there (if any) that are generally held to be of a higher quality or more complete.
Answering this question from the perspective of "best books reflecting the current academic mood", is opening Pandora's box.
Disclaimer: I'm a scholar who's been working on this topic for almost 15 years, and I am currently writing a new book for Oxford University Press, provisionally called 'Rome's Disintegration. War, Violence and the End of Empire in the West', for their popularizing 'Ancient Warfare & Civilization' series. The easiest answer is that there is no consensus.
The dissolution of western Roman emperorship in the fifth century has been one of Europe (and the Western Mediterranean)'s most pivotal geopolitical transformations, yet the surviving sources are like a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle where 800 pieces have been lost (including the box). Since 2005 there has been a major revival in modern scholarship on this topic. Some of these books are very readable even for a wider audience. Yet because the sources are so patchy, one can find plenty of books that diametrically oppose one another. Not coincidentally, this often concerns the role of the peoples-formerly-known-as-the-Barbarians and whether their migrations were a major catalyst (or not) for the end of Rome's Empire in the West.
In my humble view, the single best (and shortest!) introduction is Henning Börm's Westrom (2013). Yet it's in German. Coincidence has it that my own Dutch book 'Romeinen en barbaren' came out in the same year. These two books argue that internal conflict at the highest levels of empire were far more important to understand its eventual dissolution, rather than the barbarians.
Michael Kulikowski's twin tomes 'Imperial Triumph' (2016) and 'Imperial Tragedy' (2019) are, for the moment, perhaps the best thing available in English. But buckle your seat belts because you're in for wild ride: these two volumes chart 500 years of Roman Imperial History, from Trajan to the Langobard invasion of Italy in 800 pages. If you already have a basic grasp of the events and characters, then you're in for an absolute treat. If you're completely new to the topic, then you might be at risk of being overwhelmed. But do give it a try. If only because Kulikowski is rare for giving full coverage to western and eastern Roman political history at the same time.
Peter Heather's 'The Fall of the Roman Empire' (2005) deserves credit for having revived the debate back in the day (together with Bryan Ward-Perkins' 'The Fall of Rome' [2005] which ranges too far and wide in topical coverage to be useful here]. Heather's is probably the easiest to read and is still very popular. Yet in academic circles he's sometimes frowned upon for his rather... unfortunate... choice of language which at times veers towards xenophobia with current undertones (e.g. using phrases as 'predatory migrants').
It's anti-thesis is probably Guy Halsall's 'Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West' (2007). This is supposedly an undergraduate textbook, but it's far more complex than that (even my final year undergrads struggle with it at times). It gives you a complete introduction to the scholarly tradition, the working of the later Roman empire, theory and methodology concerning concepts such as ethnicity or gender, the archeology of the various regions... The book does include a narrative of the period c. 376-568, yet to fully appreciate the narrative you have to take the preceding chapters into consideration. And these may be daunting for those not studying the subject at uni. If it's any consolation: Halsall writes very well and had a splendid sense of humour.
If people are okay with very readable textbooks that take a longer chronological perspective, I can also recommend A.D. Lee's 'From Rome to Byzantium, AD 363-565' (2013) and Hugh Elton's 'The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, 260-642' (2019). They are two of the greatest experts on military history in Late Antiquity. Lee's is the most balanced account, given equal consideration to politics, economy, religion etc. while Elton probably gives you the single best introduction to military history of the periods in the respective chapters.
For people who'd like to have some freebies: I've written over the past five years one monograph, plus various book chapters and journal articles on the western Roman military aristocracy of the period. Most of it you can download from this page:
There are currently 2 macro-trends in this topic: "Continuists" vs "Catastrophists"... As their respective names imply, the first sees the fall of Rome in the West as a largely peaceful and bloodless processess, whereas the second still clings to the Gibbonian ideal that it was well, a catastrophy. Im a historian from Italy, but I will name mostly British authors because this is an english language forum. Without further delay, the main Continuists are Walter Goffart, Michael Kulikowsky, Chris Wickham, and Guy Hallsal. The Catastrophists are Peter Heather, Adrian Goldsworthy, and Brian Ward-Perkins. There is a 3rd School that is popular mostly in Áustria called the "Ethnogenesis" School which tries to propose a middle ground between the previous 2 schools. Its proponents are Herwig Wolfram and Walter Pohl, but unfortunatly most of their work is available only in German.
Well if we’re talking Late Antiquity then there are a good number of books out there that I would recommend. Here’s a few that I used in my MA Thesis:
There’s Guy Halsall’s Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376 - 568 which is an excellent book that focuses on Roman interactions with non-Roman peoples throughout late antiquity.
Patricia Southern’s The Late Roman Army which, as the title implies, focuses on the Roman army during the late Empire. As well as her The Roman Army which is much more recent and isn’t as specific as the other book, because it focuses on all of Roman history, but still has a very good section on the late Roman army.
Peter Heathers Goths and Romans: 332-489, The Goths, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History Of Rome and the Barbarians, and Empires and Barbarians (I own the last two but haven’t really read them much, but I generally find Heather to be a solid historian) There are some criticisms by other historians, like Halsall, of Heather’s work that I somewhat agree with but I still his books on the Goths are at worst a decent study of that period. The main point on which I disagree with Heather is that he argues the migrations or late antiquity were an invasion whereas historians like Halsall, and to some degree myself, argue that the numerous migrating barbarians were largely peacefully absorbed with some instances of conflict.
Michael Kulikowski also has several great books that focus on late antiquity, especially non-Roman peoples of that era. I haven’t actually read any of his, but I haven’t come across anything that implies they aren’t good. Kulikowski belongs to the same school or thought as Halsall and generally argues against the ideas of historians like Peter Heather. But I think it’s important to at least read a few things from both schools to understand the argument that each is making and then form your own conclusions.
I hope this isn't coming too late, but we've just completed a major revision of the Rome booklist. Do please check it out!