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More copies of this ISBN:From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present, 500 Years of Western Cultural Lifeby Jacques Barzun
Synopses & ReviewsReview:"Barzun's writing style is substantial but not abstruse, easily accessible enough for the general reader. Such a compelling synthesis is a remarkable achievement for any author, especially so for one in his 94th year." (-- Library Journal (starred review)) Review:"Jacques Barzun was born to write this book, but he could not possibly have written it when he was fifty. It is a masterwork that required a master: a man whose entire life has been spent acquiring the perspective that only wisdom, and not mere knowledge, can grant. Thank heaven he has lived long enough to complete a book no one else could even have begun." (-- Anne Fadiman, editor of The American Scholar) Review:"Jacques Barzun has not just studied European culture; he has lived it, with rare intensity. This book is the summa of his historical teaching, for everyman. Four great eras since the Renaissance provide its frame. Within it, sustaining the themes of social and intellectual concerns that link the eras with each other, there throng the myriad creative individuals'artists and intellectuals'who have struggled to give shape and meaning to our restless, dynamic culture. Drawing on his personal encounters with them all in his life of learning, Barzun has created a vast number of miniature portraits which serve him as their many-hued stones served the mosaic artists of Byzantium: to give vital substance and color to their grand designs. An extraordinary work." (-- Carl E. Schorske, Princeton University Emeritus) Review:"This is an extraordinary book. Jacques Barzun's erudition is unrivalled in its comprehensiveness and penetration. No one else could have deployed such erudition over a half-millennium of history with such clarity, grace, narrative drive, and constant and illuminating insight. More than ever it is clear that Jacques Barzun is one of the greatest cultural treasures of our time." (-- John Silber, Chancellor, Boston University) Review:"Profound, eloquent, often witty...a book of enormous riches....This is a book to be reckoned with." Publishers Weekly Review:"A stunning five-century study of civilization's cultural retreat." (--William Safire, New York Times) Review:"From Dawn to Decadence is a personal, witty, learned, bold, and above all wise retrospect of the past half-millennium. One will read it through with mounting interest, and then go back again and again to savor favorite parts of it." (-- Gertrude Himmelfarb, author of One Nation, Two Cultures) Review:"This astonishing and monumental work may fairly take its place alongside Gibbon, and for much the same array of qualities: a majestic view of five hundred years of history, down in great style, with vast erudition and a continuously entertaining idiosyncrasy of judgment." (-- Alistair Cooke) Review:"Jacques Barzun's summa is the work of a very great historian and of a seer. The phrase from the Bible is apposite: 'The hearing ear, and the seeing eye' is his great gift--and a gift to his readers." (-- John Lukacs, author of Five Days in London, May 1940) Review:"A conversational tour de force. . . . To every one of these pages Barzun brings a quiet good sense, a more than encyclopedic knowledge, and an unfailing indignation at opportunities lost and ideals betrayed. On almost every page he makes sure that other voices are heard, from Martin Luther, Erasmus and Montaigne to Marcel Duchamp, James Joyce, and Andy Warhol. . . . This book is what used to be called a 'liberal education,' and it should bring that phrase back into favor." (-- John Russell, author of Matisse: Father & Son and London) Review:"What has been the value, to the world, of the American Revolution of the 1770s? And of the French Revolution that began in 1789? Jacques Barzun has addressed these questions, and the questions which these questions raised, repeatedly--in an extraordinary series of books (not to mention his lectures, informal talks and conversations) over the course of half a century and more. As well he might. Born and brought up in France, he was young enough to enter Columbia College as a freshman in 1919. The rest is history. And a Department of History, that of Columbia. Many fine historians there, but none with Barzun's range, or style, or wit, none who could put together such a rich and diverse summing-up of everything as From Dawn to Decadence. (For some, this will be an annoying, even a maddening book. And that is something else the academic colleagues could never manage.)" (-- Eric Bentley, author of The Playwright as Thinker) Review:"To define Western culture is the most delicate and difficult of all operations. Jacques Barzun is one of the most cultivated exemplars of Western civilization and his book contains the experience and the reflection of a lifetime. He tells us not to judge past centuries by our standards and to recognize that, however different, those centuries have made us what we are." (-- Noel Annan, author of The Dons) Review:"From Dawn to Decadence is a personal, witty, learned, bold, and above all wise retrospect of the past half-millennium. One will read it through with mounting interest, and then go back again and again to savor favorite parts of it." (-- Gertrude Himmelfarb, author of One Nation, Two Cultures) Review:"This masterful, provocative, and highly readable assessment of the last half-millennium of Western culture is the perfect antidote to the dumbed-down consumerism of our own times. It is hard to imagine anyone other than Jacques Barzun as the writer of this engaging history. Reading it is akin to participating in a fast-paced seminar with one of the liveliest and best informed minds of the day." (-- Diane Ravitch, New York University) Review:"Jacques Barzun has not just studied European culture; he has lived it, with rare intensity. This book is the summa of his historical teaching, for everyman. Four great eras since the Renaissance provide its frame. Within it, sustaining the themes of social and intellectual concerns that link the eras with each other, there throng the myriad creative individuals'artists and intellectuals'who have struggled to give shape and meaning to our restless, dynamic culture. Drawing on his personal encounters with them all in his life of learning, Barzun has created a vast number of miniature portraits which serve him as their many-hued stones served the mosaic artists of Byzantium: to give vital substance and color to their grand designs. An extraordinary work." (-- Carl E. Schorske, Princeton University Emeritus) Review:"Jacques Barzun, one of the most erudite and eloquent of minds, in his new book spans the cultural history of the Western world from the Renaissance and the Reformation till now. It is a masterpiece for the ages." (-- Martin Meyerson, President Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania) Description:Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. About the Author Born in France in 1907, Jacques Barzun came to the United States in 1920.After graduating from Columbia College, he joined the faculty of the university, becoming Seth Low Professor of History and, for a decade, Dean of Faculties and Provost.The author of some thirty books, he received the Gold Medal for Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he was twice president. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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