Rating: 
Summary: Extraordinary experience
Review: Professor Barzun has created a quirky and personal guided tour of the last half millenium from the perspective of a polymath. The book reads as a sequence of vignettes, interwoven and cross referenced and overflowing with personal views, opinions, and gorgeously unsubstantiated dogma. I have rarely felt so challenged or had so much fun reading a book.
Rating:
Summary: History the Way it Should Be
Review: A great book for information on the history of western ideas. Concepts such as individualism are explored in a very readable manner. Had history been this interesting in high school I'd not have had so many naps in class. It's very intellectually exciting to see him trace the path we took to get to our present day "decadence", which he sees as the "consumer culture". While the information may not be unique, it is still a great read, especially since it deals with the issues in a fairly even handed manner and does not sound like a partisan screed. When Barzun speaks of liberalism, he speaks in the classic sense, not the modern one, as he bounces from thinker to thinker on this 500 year thought tour. The perfect coffee table book for someone interested in a bit more substance than the usual offerings.
Rating: 
Summary: Describing the past to decry the present
Review: "Bad writing, it is easily verified, has never kept scholarship from being published," Barzun writes of his 18th-century counterpart, cultural historian Giambattista Vico. Ironically, the epithet could apply to Barzun's own book. Carelessly written and sloppily edited throughout, the book is rife with grammatical errors: missing words, commas where there should be semicolons and vice-versa, and clumsily worded sentences that seem to be a holdover from the author's native French syntax.Even though this book was slow going at times, I persevered until the end. Doing so changed the way I saw the rest of the book. It became clear to me that Barzun didn't really write this book as a history lesson; his aim is not to teach, but to decry. The first 679 pages are really a prologue to Part IV, which contains the chapters "The Great Illusion", "The Artist Prophet and Jester", "Embracing the Absurd", and "Demotic Life and Times". In this fourth part of the book, which deals with the 20th century, his writing becomes more passionate--it is an invective, a diatribe. For Barzun, Yeats is the last great poet, and Cubism the last real art movement. Western civilization since the end of World War I is a welter of confusion. To be fair, he does offer a plausible explanation for this "decadence" that doesn't blame that favorite scapegoat of conservatives everywhere, the Sixties (in fact, he says that the social justice movements of the sixties were continuations of movements that began in the Twenties and Thirties and were interrupted by WWII). Instead, he traces the roots of our supposed current breakdown to the carnage of WWI and its aftermath. At the turn of the century, he says, people were proclaiming what a joy it was to be alive, and art, literature, and music were bursting with new ideas. All of that came to an abrupt halt when scores of young artists, writers and musicians were either killed in the war or kept away from their work. When the war was over, there was a schism between past and present; people were forced to start from scratch: "The reckless expenditure of lives was bound to make a postwar world deficient in talents as well as deprived of needful links to the prewar culture." According to Barzun, we have never recovered. Throughout the book Barzun highlights ideas that are key to Western civilization. The forces of Abstraction and Emancipation, Self-Consciousness and Scientism, Analysis and Reductivism, coupled with the ravages of the world wars, culminate in the cultural anarchy he sees today. The last chapter is a peculiarity. Even though it takes current events as its subject, it is wholly written in the past tense, as in: "In the last years of the era of nations, violence returned....Assault in the home, the office, and on city streets was commonplace and particularly vicious." or "From their early teens, pupils carried guns, assaulted each other, and on occasion committed little massacres by shooting into a group at random with a rapid-fire weapon". Why does he write about present-day conditions in the past tense? Is it to give these final pages an authority he knows is lacking? Is it to make this book not seem dated to those who may read it ten, twenty, fifty years from now? Whatever the reason is, it's absurd. Imagine reading sentences in this vein on every topic from recent and still-unfolding scientific developments (cloning) to current entertainment, and you get the idea of how bombastic this chapter gets. Barzun says, of our time, "No one is on record as exclaiming with Erasmus or Wordsworth 'Oh, what a joy to be alive!'" Maybe nobody he knows. But there certainly must be someone out there, today, whose life has a sense of coherence and purpose, who isn't the bewildered, sloppily-dressed, self-hating dependent of the welfare state that Barzun paints as the typical turn-of-this-century Westerner. Anyone?
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Summary: If Mr Barzun Read this...
Review: I presume almost all has been said about this book, so I only want to add just one word of criticism if by chance Mr Barzun ever read this review: thanks.
Rating: 
Summary: The first 750 pages - 5 stars. Last 50 - 2 stars.
Review: I must say that for the most part I found this book very elightening and very, very entertaining. I really liked the way Barzun put the different eras into perspective and highlighted the different thinkers of each period that he felt deserved highlighting (I've even gone on to read some of those authors much to my betterment). I even liked the chatty, even rambling manner of the book. I found his asides very entertaining. And, I must say before I get into my criticisms that I take no offense at his look at Western culture. Of course Western culture should be studied, it is extremely interesting; as interesting as any other culture, and has dominated the world stage for the last few hundred years. Now, the criticisms. I really was disappointed by the last chapter of the book. In fact, I still haven't finished reading the last ten pages. I find it very difficult to read them. The reason is that I believe Barzun is being two things in those pages: 1. simply, a cranky old man; 2. intellectually dishonest. The first is understandable. The man has lived very long and seen a lot, and like most people of his age in any time period he feels that his era is somehow in decline. I just wish he had had a better editor. The second though is more disturbing to me. His last chapter is almost a laundry list of what irritates him about the 'kids' of the last half century. This is completely at odds with how the rest of the book is written. While he is opinionated in the rest of the book (which I like), he is not so needlessly judgemental, and he keeps his eye on the prize. I was actually looking forward to the last part to see what his case for decadence is (I actually somewhat agree that the west is in decline for many reasons) but the whole argument collapses into an incoherent mess. His argument is not cogent, just seemingly all personal complaints. I really respect Barzun's intellect, I just wish he had realized he is far too biased to write the history of the last fifty years, and cut it off at the mid-century. Oh well, all in all, I would definitely suggest reading this book, but be ready to be deeply disappointed by the last fifty pages.
Rating:
Summary: Jacques Barzun is one cool cat!
Review: Please don't let the size of this book scare you away. You don't have to be a student of history or an English professor to enjoy it, and you don't need to consume it in one week. I've got this book by my bed, and just nibble at it 20 pages a night. I always fall asleep thinking "Damn that was interesting!" Barzun can be a little wordy at times but you get used to it. I wish some of these well-read reviewers would tell me some more books like this!
Rating:
Summary: A wonder
Review: I don't really think I can I add much more to the words of praise for Barzun's masterpiece, but after I read it I felt somewhat obliged to talk about it. This is one of those rare books that you don't want to finish. Barzun is an increadible writer and he "takes the reader by the hand", showing 500 years of Western Culture. He is able to discuss literature, theater, music and science and does so with a great passion. Every paragraph is a lesson and his argument is clear: we have to understand these 500 years if we expect to go on. This is the time and place for this self reflection and social reflection. This book deserves to be read and discussed seriously. If you intend to buy just one book this year, let it be Barzun's.
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Summary: Grand tour of the last 500 years
Review: In his nineties Barzun has written a book that only a lifetime of study and reflection would have made possible. He offers analysis of the major trends and ideologies that have animated the modern world from its origins to its present unraveling, as well as sharply drawn sketches of life in particular times and places and portraits of individuals who changed their world and ours. His recommendations for further study could guide a lifetime of valuable reading.
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Summary: A long read, but worth it (with a few other thoughts)
Review: In reading FROM DAWN TO DECADENCE this past summer, I could not help but wonder how much of what we actually perceive as true influence is the result of required reading lists in our own lives during our educational formation. Jacques Barzun presents a wonderfully informative look at 500 years of cultural life. His descriptions are lucid, richly descriptive and thought provoking, yet it seems that he deliberately avoids many aspects of popular culture (not just contemporary influences, but also those of many years back). True, in previous centuries, the ideas and concepts of the educational elite were the main concepts which flourished. In this century, particulary within the last few decades, the proliferation of alternative media (whether radio, television and most recently, the Internet) have accelerated perceptions of culture and society. "Pop" culture in recent years has taken on an exaggerated importance due to the expansion of information outlets. That its importance is exaggerated does not make it any less real. This is not a criticism of the book, which reflects the author's own experiences and influences. In Jacques Barzun's case, those influences and experiences are vast and he stands tall with anyone in terms of appreciating the underlying influences of society. I was fascinated as I read the entire book about how contemporary notions have their roots years, decades and even centuries before. This book is well worth the effort and allows the reader to think of his or her own influences in an entirely different light.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating, but demanding book
Review: Of course, this masterful work of 800 pages is not perfect in every detail. In the many references to political events I noticed some errors and imprecisions. Of course, one can argue about the selection of the many hundreds of persons described by the author, who have made geat cultural, artistic or scientific contributions. As a Dutchman, I regret that Dutch leading artists, philosophers and scientist didn't get their due share of attention. Barzun's chapters on the sciences are not quite on the same level as those on the arts, and especially literature. But in such an ambitious and, on the whole, succesfull master piece, all these objections only concern points of detail. The author justifies his sometimes arbitrary selection of the persons he describes with the argument that new developments rarely are the work of a single person. Mostly, new ideas « are already in the air ». There are always different contrasting and conflicting ideas at work. One of the major advantages of Barzun's « magnum opus« is that the author has a sharp eye for the fact that no epoch is characterized by a single idea. For instance, Barzun makes the reader conscious of the fact that there is more to «Victorian morality« than a narrow-minded, repressed attitude towards sexuality ; that puritanism was not solely characterized by fanaticism and bigotry ; that Rousseau's ideas were less absurd and one-sided than most people believe and that Nietzsche ment almost the opposite of what the larger public thinks he ment. Barzun starts his work around 1500, the time of Renaissance and Reformation, two currents of ideas he rightly considers as representing a new starting point for western culture. He frequently reports events which you hardly will find at any other place. For instance the political activities of de Beaumarchais, author of « The Barber of Seville » and « The Marriage of Figaro », who in 1776 as a secret agents helped to finance the American revolt against the English. A very positive thing is that Barzun regularly gives advise about accessible books in which questions treated by him are exposed at greater length. The drawback is, of course, that reading all these books would represent almost a life time of reading! An other objection against the book could be that little notice is given to economical factors. Phenomena like the labour movement, colonialism and decolonialism could have been treated at greater length. And when Barzun critically notices that all these modern household appliances do not always make life more easy, but often tend to complicate it, het omits a reference to the important social phenomenon of the virtual disappearance of the domestic. But in defense of the author, I have to point out that for economic and social history there exist other books. Barzun's speciality is the history of ideas. In this he excells. He considers literature to be our most important source for studying the ideas that dominate a certain epoch. Quite controversial, of course, is Barzuns opinion, which he expresses in the title of his work, that Western Civilization has now entered a period of decadence. Barzun sees a number of manifestations of this decadence : - the dominant exagerated relativism, which prevent people of distinguishing works of real merit from garbage ; this results in artists and thinkers not being stimulated any more to great exertions in order to produce works of quality ; (This is a tendency also criticized by the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut in his book « La défaite de la pensèe ») - the prevalent moral laxity, which leads to the decay of education and the increase of criminality ; - the persistent denial of the necessity of self control and a sense of responsibility, which increasingly erodes the moral foudations of our society ; - the by now almost unbridgeable chasm between an « avant-garde » art, that in some respects has derailed, and the larger public ; - the co-existence of a technical elite, who excells in a one-sided, very specialized expertise about small areas of knowledge, with a semi-literate mass, which does not have any respect for anything pertaining to higher culture ; - the increasing fragmentation of society. Under the pretext of « national identity », « auto-determination » and « subculture » even larger groups of people are turning their backs to the rest of society. With the decay of Christianity a whole set of values and norms shared by the entire society has disappeared. Barzun recognizes that «techne« (science and technology) is florishing more than ever before, but in his view that does not compensate for the prevailing decadence in other, more important areas of culture. Barzun recognizes that decadence is not an abnormal phenomenon in an overly mature civilization. He situates the beginning of this decadence not in the years after 1960, nor even in those after 1920, but already in the period around 1890. When the author claims that in the past decades this decadence has reached a terminal stage, he is to somber, I think. Or anyhow, I hope. He does not exclude the posibility that on the ruins of western society, as we know it from the past 500 years, a new civilization will arise in due time. Those who think that current society with its lazy «we are the world» ethos of cheap progressivism, unbounded relativism, indifferent tolerance and uncommited humanitarianism represents the «akme» of moral perfection, will be well advised to take notion of the signs of desintegration and decadence which Barzun brings to our attention. To conclude, I can heartily advise reading this book to anyone who has the time and the stamina to read a fascinating, but demanding book of 800 pages. You don't have to agree on every point with the author to recognize the value of this book. Having formulated quite a few minor objections, I have to say that in view of the merits of this book, I would consider it a sign of Dutch stingyness to withhold Barzun even one of the five stars.
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