Rating: 
Summary: history the way it should be
Review: I liked this book very much. It was different from most other histories that I have read in two important respects:
(1) Because it is impossible to do justice to each person and period encountered in the 500 years discussed, Barzun suggests books along the way for those interested in pursuing the topic further.
(2) Rather than dismiss many of the ideas, beliefs, and actions from the past that may seem odd in our day, Barzun continually attempted to relate them to beliefs presently held. Examples are: 16th Calvinism/predestination and it's 20th century counterpart of determinism and sociobiology, or the church/government control over speech compared with today's politically correct language.He gave me a new perspective on many individuals and movements which I thought I had a pretty good handle on but decided that I had bought into popular opinion rather than actual history. While providing just attention to the famous figures of the past, Barzun also introduced me to a host of new faces that have been unfairly neglected. And as with many good historians, Barzun is wary of scientism and throughout the book he alludes to the inappropriate use of reductionism and analysis.
Rating: 
Summary: Author's Running Commentary on 500 Yrs. culture
Review: Noted author and historian thematically runs through 500 years of Western civilization. His sweep his broad and primarily deals specifically with the arts take and reaction to cultural shifts, looking in the macro sense at literature, art, drama, music, etc. He has a penchant to focus on rather obscure historially speaking individuals whom the author feels typify the times and impacted them, e.g. Walter Bagehot of late nineteenth century times. One of the few periods where I am well familiar, the Reformation, Barzun writes in a very biased and modernistic way, rather than paint the period disattached. For example, he incorrectly attributes "consubstantiation" to the Lutherans, and chides Luther for his views of inerrancy. These and other errors made this reader wary of his writing into history much of his modern viewpoint, rather than reporting what happened. His organizational flow of ideas was helpful. His writing style is concise and vocabulary loaded (one will spend time in the dictionary with this one). A work to reflect and check back on as one reads with specific periods.
Rating:
Summary: Superb look into Western history!
Review: From Dawn to Decadence is what you should have learned with your liberal arts education. It is a brilliant, entertaining, thought-provoking history of the last 500 years in the West. At times I felt like putting the book down, bowing down and saying, "We are not worthy." Barzun is a brilliant man and only someone who has lived so long could have created this masterpiece. This is not a quick or fainthearted read. You won't agree with everything Barzun says, for he can be very opinionated (but not in an obnoxious way -- though I don't think he would want us to agree with all he says. Reading this book is like sharing the brilliance of a seasoned college professor. He wants you to think about history. I generally don't go for history books, I am much more of a fiction reader, but this was such a fabulous book. I would recommend it to any one with a penchant for history. From Dawn to Decadence is an enhancing, enriching read.
Rating:
Summary: Marvellous historical survey of Western culture
Review: The highly reputed historian and scholar, Jacques Barzun, offers a detailed, elegantly written and expansive survey of Western culture from 1500 to 1995. He examines the culture of the West, taking into account the significant and revolutionary political, economic, literary, scientific and artistic developments that have shaped the last five hundred years. His immense exposition includes thought-provoking and punchily-written discussions on Renaissance Italy, the art of Michelangelo nd his contemporaries, the Protestant Reformation, the emergence of modern science, the "New World" the flowering of capitalist enterprise, the Bolshevist Revolution and the wars, catastrophes and revolutions that have wrought such a profound effect on Western thought and sensibility. His treatise is also developed along such themes and individualism and emancipation, as in how he analyses the various historical currents of the West's past and how they promoted, or discouraged, such themes. The book is an enormously pleasurable experience, and is loaded with factual information and told with panache and virtuosity. Barzun, philosophically, stands in the camp of pragmatism: the only criterion of truth, he believes, is efficiency, while politically, he is a conservative, in his unabashed labelling of contemporary civilisation as decadent. (He complains, for instance, of eating in public and knee-torn jeans.) His writing abounds in acute observation, subtle overturnings of popular errors and biases, brilliant apercus and sallies of wit which fly at the reader at the flip of a page. Such names as Liszt, Vico, Mozart, Joyce, Dali, Picasso, William James, Newton, Hegel, Lenin, Luther and many others are included in the cast of his absorbing and sprawling overview. The only shortcoming of the book was the sparse and idiosyncratic, not to mention erratic, system of referencing, but this is the piddling fault that usually comes with excess of erudition.
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece for the New Millenium
Review: In his 92nd year, Barzun has published a superb book, as entertaining as it is wise, showing us who we are and how we got here -- we in the West, that is. If you like Paul Johnson's big "pull it all together" histories, you'll love Barzun's offering, which gives Johnson a run for his money. Brilliant, boldly individual, written with an empathy and staggering breadth and depth of knowledge that only a long lifetime spent studying history and the humanities could provide, FROM DAWN TO DECADENCE is a magnificent love letter to the West, as well as a sharp no-holds-barred critique of the contradictions, failures, and horrors that have marred Western History -- just as they mar every other tale of human activity over the centuries. Yes it's long and erudite, but it's also incredibly entertaining and fun-to-read. That Barzun could make his watershed analysis of 500 years of Western culture and history into such a page- turner testifies to the marvelous clarity of his prose style as it expresses his carefully reasoned insights and judgements. Enough for this review -- I want to get back to reading Barzun!
Rating:
Summary: A cultural achievement as great as the subjects it surveys
Review: It must be near impossible for any scholar to sit down and list man's top cultural achievements. Sorting out the criteria that make things great cultural achievements would take tremendous effort in the first place and then understanding man's products well enough to compile them into a tangible record is another. Barzun has done both with "From Dawn to Decadence." In doing so, he most emphatically adds an entry to the list. This is true because Barzun is able to consistently and effortlessly take the reader from the everyday antipathy of Western decadence to the highest peaks of man's product. Whether the reader explores the Reformation or the Industrial Revolution, the concepts that make man great, those that make life worth living are closer than ever. Barzun's mastery of prose (he must compete with all great writers for distinction of best all-time) and his ability to fully engage ideas make this possible. If the reader is able to walk away from this text at all, he does so with a newly found amazement. The inspiration this book offers is sure to be a driving force in the foundation of a new era of cultural production to follow the one reviewed in the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting cultural musings
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book but it took quite a while to work my way through it! For anyone interested in reading pay attention to the title. This is a "cultural" history rather than the usual chronolgy of kings, battles and revolutions. As a cultural history is is quite good.
I gave only three stars because I felt the book did wander around a bit (albeit very interesting wanderings).
I enjoyed his description of the modern age "embracing the absurd". In this section he depicts the modern age as rejecting rationalism and reason for the absurd. The cultural movers and shakers see the horrific events of the 20th century as the result of rationalism and reason and take a reactionary stance. In a larger context, the author depicts this as the full fruit of the romantic reaction of earlier centuries but portrays a dramatic shift after the first world war. Fascinating.
If you enjoy this kind of exploration you may also enjoy Roger Scruton's " An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture".
Rating:
Summary: A Decadent free experience.
Review: When I state decadent free in the title it is with the same meaning Mr. Barzun gives decadence. Decadent meaning aimless, and pointless which this book certainly is not. It is written the way all history should be written. A grand (and lengthy) overview of the last half millenium with the connections clearly revealed, like steps in a staircase to where and why we are in a decadent present. I'm always gratified when a writer will educate but also rectify commen contemporary misconceptions of terms, lines of thought, or ism's. A few examples of note are Mr Barzuns illuminations of the origins of Utopia (are current popular conception is far off from the original meaning) and the birth of the perception of the Noble Savage or "Primitivism"(Rousseau seems to be exonerated). While most modern day critics are lining up to crucify Catholicism with its closed centralized hierarchy Mr. Barzun takes aim at Protestantism, not to vilify but to lucidly proclaim it as a determining factor as to are current adrift amorality. This alone assures that Mr Barzun is no common postmodern deconstructionist self servingly deciphering the past for common socio-political advantage. Wow! What a concept. Thinking subjectivly. This elderly gentleman satisfies me that the generation that followed him is the culmination of the past five hundred years, and his hope of a possible change, can occur. Why? Because I for one (an X er)agree with him and not with the decadent baby boom and there Primitivist, Humanist mediocrity. I'm not sure why other reviewers grow weary at the length of this book. I for one would be disappointed at this endeavor if it was left to the length of a pulp novel or magazine article in todays "fast paced information age". The only reason I gave this book four and not five stars is because I couldn't get a hard covered version. I don't want this book to fall apart after a few readings. It should be in everyones library.
Rating:
Summary: Heaviest book I ever read
Review: I discovered, halfway through, that I had left my bowling ball between pages 446 and 447. It got much lighter after I removed the bowling ball. A brilliant exegesis on the history of intellectual and humanistic progress. Nevertheless, hard to square with some of the findings in Ann Coulter's latest work.
Rating:
Summary: Wow... a fair review of western culture
Review: Barzun painstakingly, in conversationally light prose, reconstructs the context of the cultural history of the West as it has been constantly in transition since the end of the middle ages. This is arguably a crash course in our own history, so much of which my liberal arts education (BA in English and Philosophy) did not teach me about the history of European and hence American culture. Barzun shows the flaws of each centuries thought including our own and underlines the foolishness of judging other centuries by our baised and just as unenlightened standards. Sometimes the lists of names and semi-obscure authors will overwhelm, but it helps for reading ANYTHING written in europe from 12th century to current and gives a frame of reference that you probably didn't know you didn't have. Equally impressive is that Barzun manages to avoid an overly conversative view or the nominal college liberal one. In an America where the intellectual thought is often tainted by political alliance, Barzun politics are stated and yet one can never decide if he is liberal or conversative, must less republican or democrat.
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