From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present

Author - Jacques Barzun ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Harper Perennial was reviewed on 12-Dec-2008.

Search ISBN:0060928832 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present Reference Book. Classifications : Early Civilization Ancient History Subjects Books Western Europe History Subjects Books General Europe History Subjects Books General AAS Europe History Subjects Books General World History Subjects B . Click the following link to view the cover of From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present.

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1) Paperback Book From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present by Harper Perennial. In as few words as possible, this is an excellent cultural history of the West. The author shares his capital of what amounts to nearly a century of lived experience and impressive erudition with anyone lucky enough to have opened the pages of this book. Barzun´s writing is top notch and highly entertaining as well. The author has the uncanny ability to summarize complicated subjects chock full of controversy in a short sentence or two like Huston Smith (e.g., the theory of evolution is well furnished with evidence. Its mechanism is still unknown). Barzun serves more as a guide here than an academic lecturer on what turns out to be virtual tour de force of Western Culture -- art, science, philosophy, politics and religion -- as it unfolded over the last five hundred years. In philosophy alone, the author does a better job in covering the key thinkers of the period better than many, if not most introductory texts. That is to say he explores the cultural and historical context of thinkers like Descartes or John Locke and how it shaped their ideas. Barzun does an equally impressive job in describing the impact of technology on a variety of subjects from the musical composition of Mozart to the influence of Cicero on the development Renaissance Humanism. The author covers a lot of territory between the covers and does so admirably with style to spare. Given all that is out there to explore in the way of reading material, not too many books make it to `the read again´ category on my mental list. This one is definitely worth a second reading IMHO!¤

2) Paperback Book From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present by Harper Perennial. From Dawn To Decadence, by Jacques Barzun, a cultural critic, historian, and former Columbia College provost and professor, was published at the height of the pre-millennial Y2K fever and purported to be a detailed analysis of the last five hundred years of civilization, or at least Western Civilization. Its subtitle is 1500 To The Present, 500 Years Of Western Cultural Life. It is, however, nothing of the sort. It is a shapeless, formless hodgepodge of ideas and incidents, biographies of the usual suspects, like Luther, Erasmus, Cromwell, Mozart, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Shaw, and Byron, and preenings, that offer no coherent view nor explanation for the last half eon. He also tries to elevate forgotten `names´, such as James Agate, that were forgotten for a reason, although obviously favorites of Barzun, while barely mentioning titans like Shakespeare- save for a great quote from Samuel Pepys dissing the Bard´s plays, Newton, Picasso, and Einstein. Barzun is not insightful enough to knock a person off their pins with a startling premise, as Jared Diamond did in his 1998 tome Guns, Germs, And Steel, nor is he the prose stylist that Daniel J. Boorstin is in his classic 1983 and 1992 books The Discoverers and The Creators. In those works, Boorstin made history fun again, by bringing a novelistic technique to stodgy historical tomes.

Barzun´s tome, which he claims took a lifetime to write (he was born in 1907 and the book hit print in 2000), is simply a giant, frustrating muddle. And it´s not just the text of what he says, but his presentation on the page. The book has numerous sidebars in the text that distract visually, but even worse, offer nothing intellectually, with some of them being patently ridiculous quotes from vapid pseudo-celebrities like rapper Ice T and comedian Bill Murray. Ironically, this is the sort of shortcut literary and intellectual technique pioneered in glossy magazines of the sort that Barzun contemptuously dismisses as decadent, and without merit. Read Edward Gibbon´s Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire or Winston Churchill´s History Of The English Speaking Peoples for a real sense of what true historical inquiry is about and written. Yet, the biggest defect of the book is that it simply adds nothing to the known facts it recounts, does so with no grand style, and leaves one asking what purpose did the book serve?

Unwittingly, Barzun often undermines his own claims. For example, he states, `the demand for genius has died out,´ then proceeds to write a book that demonstrates this fact. Or, he writes, `Bad writing, it is easily verified, has never kept scholarship from being published,´ and writes a book laced with egregious spelling errors (incredibly, he even misspells Samuel Butler´s dystopian classic Erewhon as Erehwon so that it spells Nowhere backwards!), worse grammar, poor punctuation, and ill-parsed sentences. Or, he claims, `The West has been the mongrel civilization par excellence,´ as if it were a gift from the gods bestowed first and only to himself. Not that he does not have some bright spots- such as logically and semiotically defending the use of Man in the non-sexual sense of the word, or giving the most cogent definition of scientism I´ve ever read- not bad science, but science misapplied to areas it has no sway over- the law or ethics, but these are too few and far between.

In short, Diamond had a great idea, and Boorstin the writerly gift to excite. Barzun lacks both insight and the ability to convey knowledge well. When he claims that `the peoples of the West offered the world a set of ideas and institutions not found earlier or elsewhere,´ it´s as if he believes he´s said something new and pristine, where others have said it before and better- or did I say that already?¤

3) Paperback Book From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present by Harper Perennial. I just finished this book for the first time. I´m very impressed you´ve read it seven times! (see review below) It took me about three hours per day for four weeks to finish (including some re-reading). My current view is that it´s the best book I´ve ever read - not an objective statement, obviously, but a description of my thankfulness to Mr Barzun for sharing his astonishingly rich perceptions. He´s spot on even about the last 50 years - ignore the reviewers flustered by his lack of political correctness (eg Alistair Cooke´s snotty comment about "idiosyncracy of judgement").

Also, he turned me on to Hazlitt - what a writer!¤

4) Paperback Book From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present by Harper Perennial. --whatever year you happen to read it. Jacques Barzun´s *From Dawn to Decadence* is simply a magnificent work of popular scholarship--fascinating, informative, and entertaining; what´s more, it´s lucid and readable from start to finish. It´s the rare book that even after 800 pages you´re still sorry to see it end...all the more so in this instance since you suspect the author had the knowledge and insight to have gone on agreeably for at least another 800 pages.

Barzun begins the biography of our culture´s 500-year lifespan with Martin Luther and the significance of the Protestant "revolution" and he traces its development all the way to its exhausted decrepitude in late 20th century postmodernism. It´s hard to imagine anyone writing this story with any more panache and authority than Barzun, a scholar who has clearly assimilated this vast span of history--its personalities, ideas, art, politics, and religious and social upheavals--and from it distilled its essence from the press of his own mature vision.

History, as Barzun clearly and honestly states in his introduction, can never be totally objective. Physics teaches us that the observer always colors the observed. So what good fortune it is to have Barzun as the observer--urbane, witty, knowledgeable. Having lived 90+ years, Barzun hasn´t only studied a lot of history, he´s seen a lot of it, too. So one feels compelled to respect his panoramic perspective even though it tends towards "old fogeyism," especially in the final thirty pages or so of *From Dawn to Decadence* where he sums up our culture´s demise in a scathingly dismissive role call of practically everything. Barzun, like the stereotypical crotchety grandpa from his recliner, never seems to tire of pointing out that there´s nothing new under the sun ((true enough)) and for any cultural manifestation we take as characteristically contemporary, he can point out some analogous example from three hundred years ago. "So you young´uns think you invented the sexual revolution, eh? Bah! Back in 1648..." etc.

Still, that´s not to say that Barzun doesn´t have a point or that his critique of contemporary "culture" isn´t legitimate or entirely off the mark. It´s hard to argue against the notion that the western worldview is growing dim and our culture unraveling all around us. On the other hand, reading through this 800-page survey of catastrophes and innovations, one is hard-pressed to find a period of time in the last 500 years when the culture *didn´t* appear to be in imminent danger of expiring. Perhaps it´s already dead and just doesn´t know it--but that´s another story.

*From Dawn to Decadence* brings together an enormous amount of information crafted into a narrative of compelling drive and power. If any work of history can merit being called a "page-turner," this would be that work. I don´t think it possible to read this book without benefit and enjoyment. For a culture that has all but forgotten its roots and its past, *From Dawn to Decadence* is an essential tonic to open our eyes to where we´ve been, where we are, and where--if anywhere--we may be headed.
¤

5) Paperback Book From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present by Harper Perennial. This is a masterfully in-depth survey of cultural evolution. Barzun goes several layers of fame down, to show the significance of numerous poorly remembered innovators, whose contributions rival those of more often-repeated names. For just one example we have Lady Marquise de Ramboullet, who in the 1600s opened her Paris salon, dedicated to high-minded conversation between men and women. The issues her guests discussed included government, science, or the church -- subjects which were previously matters for men of rank. But here a cultured woman set the rules and tone for debate on matters public and private. In de Ramboullet´s game, the object was not to "win" arguments or humiliate opponents, but to stimulate creativity, interaction, and mutual admiration. The participants were to treat each other as ladies and gentlemen, the way they dreamed of being treated themselves. Their competition was to raise the level of consideration and self-respect for every guest. Perhaps de Ramboullet´s salon was a sophisticated play, set apart from the real world. But the play soon became a standard by which the world and its human relations were judged. (p. 187-188)

With loads of lights like this for century after century, who cares if Barzun turns into a sour-puss on contemporary culture by the book´s end?
¤

6) Paperback Book From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present by Harper Perennial.

Highly regarded here and abroad for some thirty works of cultural history and criticism, master historian Jacques Barzun has now set down in one continuous narrative the sum of his discoveries and conclusions about the whole of Western culture since 1500.

In this account, Barzun describes what Western Man wrought from the Renaisance and Reformation down to the present in the double light of its own time and our pressing concerns. He introduces characters and incidents with his unusual literary style and grace, bringing to the fore those that have "Puritans as Democrats," "The Monarch´s Revolution," "The Artist Prophet and Jester" -- show the recurrent role of great themes throughout the eras.

The triumphs and defeats of five hundred years form an inspiring saga that modifies the current impression of one long tale of oppression by white European males. Women and their deeds are prominent, and freedom (even in sexual matters) is not an invention of the last decades. And when Barzun rates the present not as a culmination but a decline, he is in no way a prophet of doom. Instead, he shows decadence as the creative novelty that will burst forth -- tomorrow or the next day.

Only after a lifetime of separate studies covering a broad territory could a writer create with such ease the synthesis displayed in this magnificent volume.

7) Paperback Book From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present by Harper Perennial. In the last half-millennium, as the noted cultural critic and historian Jacques Barzun observes, great revolutions have swept the Western world. Each has brought profound change--for instance, the remaking of the commercial and social worlds wrought by the rise of Protestantism and by the decline of hereditary monarchies. And each, Barzun hints, is too little studied or appreciated today, in a time he does not hesitate to label as decadent.

To leaf through Barzun´s sweeping, densely detailed but lightly written survey of the last 500 years is to ride a whirlwind of world-changing events. Barzun ponders, for instance, the tumultuous political climate of Renaissance Italy, which yielded mayhem and chaos, but also the work of Michelangelo and Leonardo--and, he adds, the scientific foundations for today´s consumer culture of boom boxes and rollerblades. He considers the 16th-century varieties of religious experimentation that arose in the wake of Martin Luther´s 95 theses, some of which led to the repression of individual personality, others of which might easily have come from the "Me Decade." Along the way, he offers a miniature history of the detective novel, defends Surrealism from its detractors, and derides the rise of professional sports, packing in a wealth of learned and often barbed asides.

Never shy of controversy, Barzun writes from a generally conservative position; he insists on the importance of moral values, celebrates the historical contributions of Christopher Columbus, and twits the academic practitioners of political correctness. Whether accepting of those views or not, even the most casual reader will find much that is new or little-explored in this attractive venture into cultural history. --Gregory McNamee¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 9-Jan-2009, 00609288329780060928834, 060-320-210-380-780-970-8

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