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

Jacques Barzun

4.12 · Rating details · 4,052 ratings · 252 reviews

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 ...more

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Paperback, 828 pages

Published May 15th 2001 by Harper Perennial (first published January 1st 2000)

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Apr 04, 2016 WarpDrive rated it really liked it

Shelves: history_general

This is Barzun's “magnum opus”: an original, multi-faceted, ambitious interpretation of the cultural history of the West of the last half millennium. This is a unique, idiosyncratic, provocative work that is definitely not a linear, dispassionate account, but a critical, personal and thorough re-evaluation of the modern era.

Before getting into the merits of this important work, it is necessary to highlight that this book is quite heavily weighted towards what is commonly called “the fine arts” This is Barzun's “magnum opus”: an original, multi-faceted, ambitious interpretation of the cultural history of the West of the last half millennium. This is a unique, idiosyncratic, provocative work that is definitely not a linear, dispassionate account, but a critical, personal and thorough re-evaluation of the modern era.

Before getting into the merits of this important work, it is necessary to highlight that this book is quite heavily weighted towards what is commonly called “the fine arts” (literature, poetry, music, painting), occasionally at the significant expense of other fundamental aspects of European culture (philosophy and science, in particular). Moreover, the environmental and political/military influences, that played such an important role in the development of the European cultural evolution in the last half millennium, are occasionally underestimated and frequently treated too succinctly.

The major and significant limitation of Barzun's historical and cultural perspective is, in my opinion, his thinly disguised dismissive, if not outright hostile, attitude towards the sciences and technology, compounded by embarrassing mistakes whenever he briefly ventures into the history of science: for example he says that Newton's notation for the calculus rather than Leibniz's is the notation that is still currently in use; his definition of chaos theory betrays his clear ignorance of what it is about, and when referring to the second law of thermodynamics he says that it “records how matter and energy perpetually disintegrate” (sigh).
He confuses/identifies science with scientism, analysis with reductionism; and rather than appreciating the power of scientific thinking to identify patterns out of disorder, and the epistemological strength of the scientific method, he claims that science “leaves behind the facts of experience”. Science is not about “leaving behind the facts of experience”, it is about making order and sense out of them! Another sentence that clearly betrays his attitude: “faith in science excludes dissent on important matters; the method brings everyone to a single state of mind”. It is, in my opinion, no coincidence that the only philosopher of science who really gets any attention in his book is Thomas Kuhn – who else. To him, Internet “makes still more general the nerveless mode of existence – sitting and staring” - he ignores the tremendous push towards the democratization of cultural opportunities that Internet has been responsible for in recent times (how about MOOCs, arXiv.org, Project Gutenberg, Good Reads etc.). But I get the strong feeling that, in his ultimately conservative and possibly even elitist view of culture, these are aspects that would not gain his approval.
Coming to the history of philosophical thought, he has a clear preference for Schopenhauer - this is OK, after all he is one of my favourite philosophers! :-) - but I think that his treatment of Kant is way too simplified and succinct, and it does not fairly reflect the fundamental importance of this great thinker in the development of European thinking. Nietzsche is treated quite well, but I strongly disagree with the author's perspective of Existentialism, which he mainly sees as a negative, pessimistic, “decadent” current of thought, and which I personally consider quite the opposite: in my view there is, in Existentialism, also an element of profoundly liberating, deeply invigorating, almost Nietzschean and ultimately optimistic urge for Man to create His own meaning. It must also be said that many important philosophers do not get mentioned, while for example obscure writers get the attention of the author.

On the positive side, the author is an absolute master in providing a multi-perspectival, realistic, credible and nuanced perspective of the ideological, social and cultural climate of some of the most important or interesting historical periods/events/trends of the last 500 years: such as Humanism, the Protestant Reformation, the period of Charles V, Venice around 1650, the emergence of Absolutism, The Enlightenment and the French Revolution, the Romanticism, which are all masterfully brought to life by the author. The author is erudite, highly original and insightful. These parts are riveting, instructive, of high scholarly value, fully rounded, and a joy to read – historical writing at its best. Many very interesting points are elaborated convincingly and with strength – he destroys several common misconceptions and intellectual superstitions that have been perpetuated by much popular history writing. There are so many interesting and original points that I can only just begin to list them within the constraints of a book review. Just a few examples: I really liked how he debunks the myth that Galileo was tried because the Inquisition believed the Copernican model threatened the Church's teachings and Man’s place in the Universe, and also how the author highlights some deeply reactionary aspects of the Reformation. His rendering of the unique and utterly fascinating Venetian Republic is masterful. His debunking of the erroneous concept of the Middle Ages as divorced from the legacy and heritage of the culture of Classical Times is convincing and well argued.

It must be said though that, maybe in the effort of pursuing originality at all costs, the author occasionally makes some questionable, or at least severely selective or highly idiosyncratic, statements: for example when he claims that "the Kaiser did everything in his power for Austria to avert war" – from what I remember this is a statement that, at best, only partially represents what happened: in reality Wilhelm and his Chancellor, after the assassination, incited Austria-Hungary to exact revenge against Serbia and pushed it to declare an ultimatum! Events then quickly spiraled out of control, but Wilhelm appeared not to foresee (or did not want to foresee) the consequences of the Austro-Hungarian attack on Serbia, and when he later feebly attempted to scale things back, it was too late, and he was dissuaded by the German generals, who convinced him that Germany would easily win the war. Hardly a committed pacifist, I would think.
While I am one who agrees that WWI Germany has often received an unfair treatment in much historical writing, I can't agree with the apologetic attitude of the author in this particular instance.
There is also an embarrassing, huge mistake in page 225, when the author states that the Carolingian Renaissance was “swamped by a fresh wave of Germanic invaders – Franks, Vandals, and Goths” (sigh).

Apart from these issues, though, the author's historical writing is generally compelling, precise, very interesting and rich with insights. I also strongly agree with the author's perspective on historical research: contrarily to the fashionable historical over-determinism that sadly affects too many authors (see my review about the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" as a glaring example of such approach), the author correctly states that: “to begin with, cause in history cannot be ascertained any better than motive in its human agents. Both must be represented as probable, and it is wiser to speak of conditions rather than causes, and of influence rather than a force making for change”. I would personally add to the recipe the strong element of pure, simple element of randomness, and irreducible elements of feedback loops and of chaotic behaviour that necessarily govern multi-agent complex systems such as human societies.

The author narrative style is quaintly and charmingly unique, highly original, somewhat old-fashioned and ornate, but pleasant and effective enough to make reading this book a generally highly pleasant experience – it just takes a little while to get fully used to it. Many under-appreciated and under-reported authors and thinkers are dutifully represented, and this is highly laudable, but occasionally the author really goes too far, and in such cases the narrative becomes a dull list of unknown authors and books that are only very succinctly described, that are forgotten as soon as the reader turns the page, and that add absolutely nothing to the value of the overall story.

The final chapter (the one dealing with contemporary times) is unfortunately a significant disappointment and of much lesser quality than all the other chapters (a real pity in what is otherwise such an important and valuable book): it amounts to no much more than a series of rantings about a supposed decadence of contemporary “demotic” society – and this is done from a point of view that is difficult not to perceive as really conservative, even plain anachronistic at times.

Regardless of these issues, it is important to highlight however that this is a very important and ambitious book, well written and highly insightful and original, interesting and a pleasurable reading experience, instructive and highly recommended to anybody interested in the Western cultural history of the last 500 years.

3.5 stars (rounded up to 4). ...more

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Sep 06, 2008 Bentley rated it it was amazing

Brief synopsis: A book for the stalwart who love learning and intellectual gymnastics. A brain workout.

I have to agree with Elizabeth S who reviewed as follows:

A very deep read. One of those that, to really enjoy, takes more time than just the reading time. It isn't a book to read, it is a book to experience. A book that, when you are done, you feel you know less than you thought you knew when you started. Overall, absolutely amazing.

Jacques Barzun is extremely well respected and won the ...more

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Nov 05, 2009 Szplug rated it it was amazing

Perhaps the single most amazing thing about this tome - an absolutely brilliant compendium of wisdom, erudition, commentary, and insight, written with a detached passion that illuminates the topics and breathes life into its actors - is that Barzun assembled most of this five-star gem whilst in his early nineties! That the cobwebs of senescence have never been allowed to gather in this transplanted Frenchman's mind becomes abundantly clear as one works their way through this absolute exemplarity ...more

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Jun 11, 2009 Lynn Buschhoff rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

This a book for the person who thinks that they will not live long enough to learn everything they want to learn. It is huge. It is marvelous. If one looks at the bibliography, it is stunning that any one person could have accessed all this knowledge. This book is 500 hundred year of Western culture, everything from politics, to cookbooks. It took me from October to May to read this book ( of course I put it down for periods or time to read a fast mystery or thriller for a break) but I felt like ...more

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Jun 10, 2012 David Withun rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, history

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Oct 26, 2012 Bob Mustin rated it it was amazing

I came across Jacques Barzun in the late nineties as his book, From Dawn to Decadence - 1500 to the Present - 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, began to gain traction. I was still bogged down in an engineering career then, had divorced my first wife and 2.4 kids, and was in the early stages of re-marriage, but I felt compelled by the idea of this book and began to read it in what spare time I could summon.

What a book! And what a mind. Barzun was in his mid-nineties then, an age in which you - I came across Jacques Barzun in the late nineties as his book, From Dawn to Decadence - 1500 to the Present - 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, began to gain traction. I was still bogged down in an engineering career then, had divorced my first wife and 2.4 kids, and was in the early stages of re-marriage, but I felt compelled by the idea of this book and began to read it in what spare time I could summon.

What a book! And what a mind. Barzun was in his mid-nineties then, an age in which you - stereotypically - expect to listen to addled, semi-remembered stories from these elderlies and watch them hobble from bed to bathroom on a rickety walker. Not so with Barzun, as this book attests.

He had and eye on the past, to be sure, and he wasn't about to be ensnared by the candy floss of modern culture. We in our age tend to dismiss the elderly, but in previous eras, younger folk sought out these aged ones, simply because they'd seen so much of life and consequently were expected to have a broader vision of where their society had come from, where it was going. Sometimes such views were a tad jaundiced, but it has always been hard to dismiss the views of someone who has seen so much of life.

Barzun's book, Dawn to Decadence, gives us both ends of this personal spectrum. In it he traces western society's evolution from its Greek and Roman roots, in which our understanding of the world we live in - and of ourselves - began to develop from the minds and experiences of a few. Subsequent cultures built on the ideas of these few individuals, then more collective ideas wrung from cities, then nations, each differing to a great degree in its approaches to life and culture based on what each had to work with, geographically and ethnically.

What seems to have troubled Barzun was the ephemeralization of culture as it began to manifest in the late 1800 and as it reached a crescendo in our modern times. Art, literature, philosophy, politics - all these and more - began to reach deep within the global hodgepodge to find some common, abstracted ground. This is where we seem logjammed today with our postmodern sensibilities (note that postmodernism isn't a what-is; instead it's a what-is-not), and this is where Barzun began to wring his hands. As tribal, national, and regional cultures interacted more and more, there were bound to be conflicts in habits and beliefs, and this has led to all of today's "isms," (Pick one or a pair: socialism, fascism, communism, Catholicism, Mormonism, evangelism, modernism, postmodernism...on and on).

A great deal of our current social angst has its roots in our clinging belief in practices that led to many of western society's earlier stages: conflict, violence, war. These now are cultural norms - from the push-pull of regional conflicts to man-woman interactions - and Barzun was right to point this out. And he was also right in another thing: our urge for some abstract common ground begat superficiality: fashion, political correctness, compounding fantasies in politics and religion, and even science.

But is Barzun right? Will we look over our shoulders, just before we see the dark side of the sod, and see western society fallen to a smoldering piles of ashes? We can't know, of course, because there are too many steps yet to take, too many possibilities yet unborn. All we can know is that we're on the cusp of something. We at least owe Jacques Barzun a tip of the hat for bringing us up to speed on this realization.
...more

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Feb 05, 2018 Boris Glebov rated it liked it

A book to read with your pinky out.

Barzun's erudition is dazzling. Analysis, however, is often absent or rather shallow. A good analogy for this work is like that first intro paragraph of a Wikipedia article. It gives you a great sense of the subject without any considerable depth, just few key highlights aside.

He does draw a few arcs of ideas throughout the 500 years of Western European history, but that insight is nothing groundbreaking. The greatest value is his intricate knowledge of an A book to read with your pinky out.

Barzun's erudition is dazzling. Analysis, however, is often absent or rather shallow. A good analogy for this work is like that first intro paragraph of a Wikipedia article. It gives you a great sense of the subject without any considerable depth, just few key highlights aside.

He does draw a few arcs of ideas throughout the 500 years of Western European history, but that insight is nothing groundbreaking. The greatest value is his intricate knowledge of an endless array of brilliant characters who play important roles in Europe's intellectual and cultural development. However the barrage of names and works is overwhelming, and the haphazard organization of the book makes it a poor reference. I actually wish I kept some notes while reading it.

Despite the considerable length - 800 pages of densely set text - the scope is quite narrow. The book really focuses on England, France, and Germany. Spain and Italy are give some token attention. Russia and the US are side attraction. South America is covered in a brief, glancing reference to Pablo Neruda.

References to scientific concepts are inept. References to political history are scant.

The best part of the book is that dedicated to the 1800s, an epoch he romanticizes unabashedly - though this leads him to provide the most acute observations and most detailed discussions. His analysis of the 20th century is deeply flawed. In the last 30 pages of the book, he degenerates into an old man yelling at clouds - he is completely at sea culturally. His discussion of music, for example, focuses largely on abstract experimentalists such as John Cage - jazz and blues get a passing mention, while punk and electronika get nothing at all, even though any one of those movements had a greater political, social, and cultural weight than the experimental evolutions of "classical" music.

Barzun's knowledge is vast, and his writing is eloquent. But the book suffers from too broad a take, and Barzun's own monarchist tendencies which make him sound dismissive and ridiculous. ...more

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Jun 02, 2015 Todd Stockslager rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history

Review title: Draw up a chair; Jacques Barzun has a treasure map to share
The treasure is the inheritance of the 500 years of Western cultural life of Barzun's subtitle that is at my fingertips today. The map is Barzun's lifework documented in 800-plus pages of hard-learned and hand-drawn (as it were) survey marking the the routes to the treasure caches that have been created, assembled, saved, and lost over the five centuries of modern Western culture.

While this is a survey in the grand ...more

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Sep 13, 2015 Michael Canoeist rated it it was amazing

Shelves: epics, intelligent-criticism, western-civilization

The work of Jacques Barzun's lifetime -- how could a reader not profit from this summary of so much of what this scholar and thinker had studied in his generous span? [Editing in a good example of his take on a subject most are familiar with -- how we read, he says misread, Hamlet; see farther below...]
Since he lived to 105, that makes for a lot of curiosity, thought, and learning. This summary of modern western civilization was published in 2000 when Barzun was 93, although it reads like the The work of Jacques Barzun's lifetime -- how could a reader not profit from this summary of so much of what this scholar and thinker had studied in his generous span? [Editing in a good example of his take on a subject most are familiar with -- how we read, he says misread, Hamlet; see farther below...]
Since he lived to 105, that makes for a lot of curiosity, thought, and learning. This summary of modern western civilization was published in 2000 when Barzun was 93, although it reads like the work of a man in his prime. He traces themes through these 500 years and will stimulate and provoke you on darned near every page. Can't do more justice than to quote his own purposes:

"It takes only a look at the numbers to see that the 20th century is coming to an end. A wider and deeper scrutiny is needed to see that in the West the culture of the last 500 years is ending at the same time. Believing this to be true, I have thought it the right moment to review in sequence the great achievements and the sorry failures of our half millennium.

"This undertaking has also given me a chance to describe at first hand for any interested posterity some aspects of present decadence that may have escaped notice, and to show how they relate to others generally acknowledged. But the lively and positive predominate: this book is for people who like to read about art and thought, manners, morals, and religion, and the social setting in which these activities have been and are taking place. I have assumed that such readers prefer discourse to be selective and critical rather than neutral and encyclopedic. And guessing further at their preferences, I have tried to write as I might speak, with only a touch of pedantry here and there to show that I understand modern tastes."

The framework runs from Martin Luther to the internet. There are so many surprising things in here that its density is delightful. I have been reading it off and on for several years, and now that I am solidly past the halfway point, I wanted to get this little notice up here rather than wait another couple years when the treatment of the 20th century might, I fear, fatally discourage me. That may not sound like much of a recommendation but this is a tremendous book, as my rating and all the other reviews here must have made clear already.

So, on Hamlet, from p. 254:
The common notion of Hamlet is that he vacillates. In Olivier's film, the play is called "the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind." That the play is first and foremost political is ignored. Everybody since Coleridge has concentrated on Hamlet's character and forgotten his situation. It is true that his character is finer than that of his entourage; he has a conscience and does not kill first and think afterward. Killing a king accepted by the populace is not a bagatelle. Laertes is the impetuous boy, put in to make the contrast clear. Hamlet has to think and watch, because from the outset he is in danger, a threat to the usurper and his aides; all conspire against him, including, though unwittingly, his betrothed. And he has his mother to consider. His soliloquies show him superior to his barbaric times, but what he thinks must not be taken for what he does. He wipes out the hired killers sent with him to England; he comes back resolved but wary and fails only by treachery.
Two further facts reinforce the corrective view. Fortinbras says about Hamlet at his burial: he would have been a great king. This forecast would sound ridiculous if through five acts the hero had shown nothing but indecision. The other is the conclusion of a modern playwright that the text of Hamlet transposes scenes which, in a different order, would make the action go straight and fast. To appreciate the argument and the result, read Shakespeare's Game by William Gibson. ...more

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Oct 01, 2015 David rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, cultural-analysis

How did we get to where we are today in Western culture? One of my favorite books of all time, A Secular Age by Charles Taylor, seeks to answer that question. Specifically, Taylor looks at how we moved from believing in God,mostly without question, in 1500 to having many options today. When I saw this book at the used bookstore, I was intrigued because of the topic (and the great deal!). But though Barzun covers the same period as Taylor, his book is quite different.

As I read the book I perused How did we get to where we are today in Western culture? One of my favorite books of all time, A Secular Age by Charles Taylor, seeks to answer that question. Specifically, Taylor looks at how we moved from believing in God,mostly without question, in 1500 to having many options today. When I saw this book at the used bookstore, I was intrigued because of the topic (and the great deal!). But though Barzun covers the same period as Taylor, his book is quite different.

As I read the book I perused some reviews and Barzun's Wikipedia page. Through that I learned he wrote this book in his 90s as his magnum opus! Near the end when he finally gets to WWI he writes from firsthand memory, which kind of nearly blew my mind. It was also amazing that he wrote this in his 90s for the book is filled with references to all sorts of people that casual students of history have never even heard of. He tells the story you may think you have heard before, but soon realize is vastly more complex then you knew.

Though I was enjoying this book, I was not sure what to make of it. At first it seemed like what you would expect - beginning in 1500 the first figure discussed is Luther. But soon Barzun is discussing opera and poetry. It was not till I got to his chapter on the French Revolution that I finally realized the genuis of this book. Barzun discussed Napolean's invasion of Egypt, but his focus was not on the battles but on the thinkers Napolean took with and their work which has mostly been forgotten, influential as it was. If you want a history book that tells you history focused on political leaders and war, there are other books. Such books are probably a prerequisite for this one, as Barzun assumes a basic understanding of much of the actual historical events. This book is centered on culture - music and art and literature. Of course, philosophy and politics and economics appear too. But I learned more then I ever cared to know about the history of opera, for example.

The final chapter, where Barzun discusses the present day (well, 1995) is worth the price of the book. We've reached decadence and it is not pleasant.

Overall, highly recommended. ...more

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Oct 03, 2014 Andrew rated it did not like it

Shelves: books-i-own

This one was a bit of an impulse buy. Generally, I am one to do my due diligence with book purchases by reading reviews both favorable and unfavorable. Seeing the praise being lavished upon this work with so few exceptions, however, I decided to throw caution to the wind and give this a try. Regrettably, this haphazard approach did not pay off.

Admittedly, I did not finish this book, plodding through 200 or so pages, and so cannot give this book the fair, and thoroughgoing review it deserves ...more

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Oct 06, 2010 Brad Lyerla rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

This is a wonderful book that could be written only by someone like Barzun and only near the end of a deeply distinguished career that spanned several decades.

The scope of the book is breath-taking. And the learning necessary to write it is mind-boggling. The book is exactly what the sub-title suggests: an erudite discussion of 500 years of western cultural life.

In particular, I love Barzun's definition of decadence: a state of affairs where futility and absurdity are accepted as normal. ...more

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Jan 03, 2011 Rachel rated it it was amazing

It's not often that one is sorry to finish a nearly 800-page book, or that the process of wending one's way through those 800 pages is so consistently engaging, enjoyable and even exciting. Being so thoroughly a product of this decadent era, I have to make an ironic comment: part of the reason this romp through 500 years of history was so enjoyable -- for me and I suspect for many of those who put it on the NYT bestseller list -- is because of a level of culture and education that renders only a ...more

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Oct 04, 2010 Lauren Albert rated it really liked it

Shelves: history-world

This was an excellent overview which turned into a diatribe against (what he sees as) the modern world. The last 20 pages or so are so odd that I was dizzy. Fraud as a substitute for artistic creativity (because everyone wants to be an artist, of course, and fraud is an apt substitute)? Terrible literary biographers actually "Interview surviving contemporaries." This is just a selection. I would say--read the whole thing until he gets to his vision of today (when he wrote the book). I knew he ...more

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Jul 05, 2008 Paula rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Those interested in the History of Ideas

Recommended to Paula by: Amazon.com

Not the kind of book that you can't put down. I use this as my exercycle reading. That way I digest a little each day. This is not only a book about history, but a book about ideas. Barzun traces the intellectual history of Western Civilization since its "Dawn" with the birth of the printing press and consequent proliferation of ideas. I never pick it up without feeling that I've found insight into why things have played out the way they have, or at least confirmation of something I've ...more

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May 04, 2015 Craig Fiebig rated it really liked it

Critical review of 500 years of intellectual development and retreat. Skewers the isms and 'wings' with equal veracity, my preferred style. Excellent survey, likely best to read rather than to listen as the detail requires a bit of replay.

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Mar 16, 2011 Eric Morse rated it it was amazing

This Book Is 11,856 Pages Long

After having read Jacques Barzun's summa thirteen times, I have concluded that this book is not really 912 pages long as it appears in the product details, but rather 11,856 pages. Every time I read this masterpiece, I find new ideas and fresh material on every page. Seemingly, the book is an endless fount of intellect, culture, etiquette, morals, art, science, politics, and genius that serves as the capstone of the last era and the cornerstone for the next.

The This Book Is 11,856 Pages Long

After having read Jacques Barzun's summa thirteen times, I have concluded that this book is not really 912 pages long as it appears in the product details, but rather 11,856 pages. Every time I read this masterpiece, I find new ideas and fresh material on every page. Seemingly, the book is an endless fount of intellect, culture, etiquette, morals, art, science, politics, and genius that serves as the capstone of the last era and the cornerstone for the next.

The first thing to note about `From Dawn to Decadence' is that it is no ordinary history. It is a `cultural history' (Barzun is the preeminent scholar in that department), which means that you will not get a thorough account of the events and even personalities of the last 500 years.

Culture is made up of the people in general, social trends, and the product of man, and so historical elements such as war and disaster, which are admittedly important to understanding our past, are not covered here. The author does investigate the lives of prominent people and of course explores the events, but does so only with regard to the `ideas' that have arisen in our era. With that focus, Barzun uses the historical pretext to uncover the kind of truths about life that can only be found in philosophical works.

The ideas are summarized in the Part heads, whose style mirror the book's title. They take the reader `From Luther's Ninety-five Theses to Boyle's Invisible College'; `From the Bog and Sand of Versailles to the Tennis Court'; `From Faust, Part I, to "Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2"'; and `From "the Great Illusion" to "Western Civ Has Got to Go"'. Through each transition, one can see how Western man grows and develops from a restless, nascent people to a mature, decadent culture.

Do not read this book hoping to get a fresh reiteration of what we learn in modern media or even what we learn in school about what was important in our history, especially of the 20th century. You will be disappointed to find that the Great Depression and World War II are mentioned only in passing and Ernest Hemmingway and Jackson Pollack are not touted as amazing geniuses. Do not expect to read about Ayn Rand or the Beatles.

These elements of our past that we believe to be so important in our lives are shown to be insignificant consequences of larger, more dominant historical forces. The people and events mentioned here are actually consequences of the historical force of Decadence, which, in a cultural history, is rightly demeaned. The reader realizes how insignificant the 20th century is after reading about the previous 400 years of cultural growth anyway. The people and events covered in first three parts are shown to be much more deserving of our attention and admiration.

One must smile upon reflection--Erasmus, Petrarch, Montaigne, Bruno, Pascal, Cromwell, Diderot, Beddoes, Hazlitt, Bagehot, William James. The modern reader does not recognize half of the names that Barzun features, but realizes once he has read about them what kind of genius they offered and why it is important to learn about them and multiply their ideas.

Attached to some of the names, but also quite independent elements in themselves, are the nine themes that this book presents: Emancipation, Primitivism, Reductivism, Analysis, Abstraction, Scientism, Secularism, Specialization, and Self-consciousness. Given small caps for designation, these themes appear throughout the story as currents that flow through the era's cultural stream, each introducing its own captivating idea worth significant attention.

This technique and other innovations make `From Dawn to Decadence' a ground-breaking work in style as well as in content. Barzun employs reference tools (forward and backward-pointing page numbers, `the book to read is' recommendations, and unique formatting for section breaks) to accommodate study. He also institutes `add-ins', which function like the familiar `pull-outs', but offer the reader extra material in the form of "`the real self and voice' of the persons in the drama."

Aside from the original techniques, the book stands out because of Barzun's literary genius, a talent that must rival the talent of all of history's great writers. It would be a challenge to find another work that expresses so many ideas and educates so thoroughly while constantly engaging and entertaining the audience as this masterpiece does. The book must be considered a new standard for cultural history and letters in general as well as a benchmark for all future cultural works. There simply is not a more rewarding book out there.

Read this book once and your life will change forever. Read it a seventh time and you will vow to return to the book as often as possible. Read it a thirteenth time and you will agree that it is among the world's greatest cultural treasures. ...more

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Apr 05, 2016 Gary Beauregard Bottomley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

It's good for me to read a book that takes me out of my comfort zone by reading a book like this one that mostly talks about the fine arts and written by a curmudgeon. If I had started reading this in the year 2000, I would have stopped, but today I found his obvious retrograde beliefs charmingly anachronistic.

I hate to dwell on the author's obviously curmudgeonly ways since they really aren't the heart of the book. He writes a good survey of fine arts. In the beginning of the book he goes It's good for me to read a book that takes me out of my comfort zone by reading a book like this one that mostly talks about the fine arts and written by a curmudgeon. If I had started reading this in the year 2000, I would have stopped, but today I found his obvious retrograde beliefs charmingly anachronistic.

I hate to dwell on the author's obviously curmudgeonly ways since they really aren't the heart of the book. He writes a good survey of fine arts. In the beginning of the book he goes chronologically and thematically, but thankfully he starts to let the time period tell the story. People like me, really need to learn about literature, poetry, music all the things I've avoided my whole life. The author tells the emotional, passionate and intuitive story from the 1500s to 2000. He definitely favors Schopenhauer and his viewpoint on the meaning of art. (I suspect he spent more time on Schopenhauer than he did on Nietzsche).

He's an expert at relating the modern thinkers to the time period he is considering. He really likes William James (as I do), and he relates him to many 16th century thinkers.

The author spent about an hour and a half on Pascal and Louis XIV. I enjoyed the topic of Pascal's posthumous book, Pensee so much, I'll probably end up getting it even though Pascal's Wager is such a pathetic argument in itself.

There's plenty to recommend in this book.

He's not much of a scientist. He gets that part of the story wrong or incomplete. He will disparage 'scientism'. He defines it as the application of science to an area that is not appropriate. By definition, he makes scientism inappropriate when it's used outside of it's normal domain. He makes a big point that evolution by natural selection was worked out by others before Darwin. He said Newton's notation for the calculus is the notation that is currently in use. That's nonsense. These aren't big points with me, but they show me he's not much of a science historian.

He said that "the Kaiser did everything in his power for Austria to avert war", and both sides are to blame for the great war. The Germans gave Austria a 'blank check', and ask a Belgium who started the war. He defends the Germans by saying Britain was planing on invading neutral Belgium anyways. Both sides are to blame. Blah, blah, blah! Read Max Hastings!

I don't know why he said that the rulers who sent Columbus really didn't want to exterminate the native American people. That's a weird statement (probably true, but the Native Americans do get exterminated. Who cares about the good intentions). He tells me the Puritans really weren't puritanical, the Victorians weren't prudes and other such rubbish. Those things don't ruin the book and are just a small part of the book.

He really should not have written the last one hour of the book. He didn't seem to like the fact that in 1999 New York State made it a civil right to breastfeed in public. (See, that's why I call him an anachronism. Nobody today will think twice about women breastfeeding in public). In the beginning of the book he'll say how he'll use man to represent both men and women. He'll tell us that 'actress' will always be used and so on. I don't think he's fully aware that Freud and his psychoanalysis mumbo jumbo had been completely over turned by the year 2000.

Overall, ignore my nitpicking. They aren't the heart of the book, and his fine art heavy story is worth while.

BTW, if any goodreads friend reads this review and would like my audio cd version of this book, just send me an email with your address and a promise to pay the shipping (probably $4), and I'll gladly mail the CDs to you. It was a pain in the ass to upload the CDs to my computer and then convert them to Iphone format, but it was worth it). ...more

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Jan 06, 2017 Clif rated it really liked it

From Dawn to Decadence is the masterwork of an accomplished author whose cultural knowledge is both broad and deep. Moving from 1500 to 1995, Barzun takes the reader by the hand directing attention to both well and little known people and the activities that characterized the most recent centuries of Western civilization.

Barzun identifies themes that connect one period to another, making them stand out with capitalization. EMANCIPATION, INDIVIDUALISM, PRIMITIVISM and ABSTRACTION are four. These From Dawn to Decadence is the masterwork of an accomplished author whose cultural knowledge is both broad and deep. Moving from 1500 to 1995, Barzun takes the reader by the hand directing attention to both well and little known people and the activities that characterized the most recent centuries of Western civilization.

Barzun identifies themes that connect one period to another, making them stand out with capitalization. EMANCIPATION, INDIVIDUALISM, PRIMITIVISM and ABSTRACTION are four. These hold the 800 page work together in what otherwise could be a confusing amount of information. I admit that there were times when I was lost in the detail he provides. His love of the arts and the written word is evident as is the fact that he has read and can compare many of history's great works. When I think of the state of education in the United States at present, while knowing that I am ignorant of many of the things Barzun mentions, I wonder where the audience for this book is (will be) and what will happen to the history that to Barzun is so fascinating but to most people is completely unknown.

When Barzun speaks of decadence, he means the loss of vision, of the eagerness to discover that carried Western culture through the centuries. Life is not taken seriously. Instead of looking forward with wonder to what may come next, there is anxiety, a lack of foundation and a restless insecurity about what we know will come next - our jobs lost to robots, for example. It seems everything has been tried before in the arts, so technique in and of itself is pursued. Culture churns rather than advances. "reality" shows are laughably contrived. Standards are suspect. The claim is made that the reader of a book is just as qualified as the author to state the meaning of the text. Nothing is sacred (religious or otherwise). Progress, except in technology, is seriously in doubt. The exciting drive to open up the new that began with the Renaissance has played out with glorious man now transformed into many individuals wanting the world to go away, to find the shelter that Mick Jagger sang about. The book could well have been titled "From Anticipation to Anxiety". Freud and psychoanalysis are not left out.

Intellectuals will love the book, but the average reader will go to sleep. If you have been to the opera and the ballet, have attended orchestra concerts, have a collection of classical music and enjoy reading classic literature then you will be delighted at the evaluations Barzun provides as well as his telling of how these things came to be as you know them. If not, you'll be lost. Almost everyone can follow his account of the 20th century simply because there is enough common knowledge and known figures to which the average reader can relate, but earlier parts of the book will strike many as something only professors could enjoy. The author has tried hard to open things up to all but he can't escape what he is, the highly educated aesthete, that most are not.

Be warned, Barzun makes recommendations of sources to read, noted where appropriate in his text. You may, like me, end up with many more books to read after finishing this one.

...more

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Jan 14, 2016 Ken Lawrence added it

Shelves: what-is-going-on

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. - An age (a shorter span within an era) is unified by one or two pressing needs, not by the proposed remedies, which are many and thus divide.
- A movement in thought or art produces its best work during the uphill fight to oust the enemy; that is, the previous thought or art. Victory brings on imitation and ultimately Boredom.
- "An Age of --" (fill in: Reason, Faith, Science, Absolutism, Democracy, Anxiety, Communication) is always a misnomer because insufficient, except perhaps "An Age of - An age (a shorter span within an era) is unified by one or two pressing needs, not by the proposed remedies, which are many and thus divide.
- A movement in thought or art produces its best work during the uphill fight to oust the enemy; that is, the previous thought or art. Victory brings on imitation and ultimately Boredom.
- "An Age of --" (fill in: Reason, Faith, Science, Absolutism, Democracy, Anxiety, Communication) is always a misnomer because insufficient, except perhaps "An Age of Troubles," which fits every age in varying degrees.
- All historical labels are nicknames--Puritan, GOthic, Rationalist, Romantic, Symbolist, Expressionist, Modernist,--and therefore falsify. But “renaming more accurately” would be effort wasted. Coming from diverse minds, it would reintroduce confusion. All names given by history must be accepted and opened up, not defined in one sentence or divided into sub-species.
- The historian does not isolate causes, which defy sorting out even in the natural world; he describes conditions that he judges relevant, adding occasionally an estimate of their relevant strength.
- Neither of these propositions is true by itself: “Ideas are the product of society.” “Social change is the product of ideas.”
-The denial just stated applies also to heredity and environment; great men and the masses of mankind; economic forces and conscious purpose; and any other pair of commonly invoked coordinate factors. The exact course of their respective action cannot be understood and consequently cannot be stated.
- A class is not a homogenous group of people marching in step but a sort of labeled platform populated by a continuous stream of individuals coming from above and from below. Once settled, they acquire the common traits.
- The potent writings that helped to reshape minds and institutions in the West have done so through a formula or two, not always consistent with the text. Partisans and scholars start to read the book with care after it has done its work.
- In art, influence does take place and when strongest is least literal. When it is literal it must be called plagiarism and the fact should not be concealed by the eminence of the thief.
- In biography, systematic explanation by unconscious motives defeats the purpose of portraying an individual character. It turns him or her into a case, which then belongs to one of the types in the literature of psychology.
- Progress does occur from point to point along a given line for a given time. It does not occur along the whole cultural front, though it may appear to by throwing into shadow the resistant portion. The sciences are no exception. ...more

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Jun 22, 2008 Michael rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: anyone with a pretense to cultural literacy

Recommended to Michael by: Justin Zeppa (wise boy!)

Frankly, having read this work, I'm a bit embarassed to be writing a review. In as much as the whole narrative leads one to an inescapable feeling of living in a totally fragmented, de-contextualized, and (to use the author's word) decadent, society; it seems rather self-indulgent to commit these words to the infinite void of cyberspace, where, as far as I will ever know, no one will read them, respond to them, or act upon them.
Having said that, however, here are my thoughts:
Barzun has done ...more

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Feb 17, 2014 Tso William rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, history, intellectual-history

This article reviews two masterpieces of intellectual history: From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life (by Jacques Barzun) and The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century (by Peter Watson)

Reading intellectual history is like looking out at the window when the plane takes off. The colossal buildings become smaller and smaller until they are no more than little blocks of lego. It is then you realize how those distinct and individual blocks are connected through ...more

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May 21, 2019 Shane rated it it was amazing

"The general public read the popularizers. Their work can be excellent, but more often it is a catchy recital without the life-giving ingredient of vision."

Barzun's criticism of popular history here provides the perfect reason to appreciate his book, it is a work of vision. Barzun traces modern Western Cultural history from its "Dawn" in 1500 to its "Decadence" around 2000. Along the way, Barzun pauses to elucidate on an astonishing number of topics and figures of the West and uses four major ...more

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Nov 11, 2018 An Idler rated it it was amazing

A magisterial work, magnificent in scope. The produce of a life of studied reflection. Barzun wrote in his old age on a topic haunted by themes of decline, decadence, and endings - the work is therefore necessarily elegiac. But Barzun is too tough and too practical to indulge in kitschy boo-hooing like other authors who observe a downward trend to the graph of Western culture. Barzun is the most shrewd of the anti-modern moderns.

I suspect this book's audience knows itself. In case you're ...more

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Oct 24, 2017 Ericka Clouther rated it really liked it

Recommended to Ericka by: James Shute

Shelves: nonfiction, history, book-club-dad, religion, long-book, 2000-09, music, author-male, 0-own, christianity

I did not especially enjoy reading this which is why I initially gave up after 200 pages. But I hate quitting things, and this is one of my dad's books, so I persisted. It's definitely interesting the way he handles European culture of 500 years, which is too long a time period even for a book this long, but it was a good try.

I initially was thinking 3 stars, but I bumped up my stars when I got to the end and read his summation of more modern history. I wonder how I would have viewed the ...more

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Feb 19, 2014 Vlad Golovach rated it it was amazing

Shelves: история, избранное, культура-в-целом, the-culture-of-design

850+ pages of non-diluted joy. The longest book I have ever read, thanks to great number of "read more about it in X" detractions which forced me to read couple of great books in between (and more left in in the queue). The style is great. The brevity is amazing. The scope is broad. The analysis is succinct. What more can we ask for?

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Dec 11, 2018 Jamie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history

This is a magisterial work of history, an extended tour of the key cultural events of the past five hundred years. It is astonishing in its depth and insight, the kind of book that can change a reader’s views about the developments that led to the modern world. Barzun’s key thesis is summed up in the very first paragraph of the book, “It takes only a look at the numbers to see that the 20th century is coming to an end. A wider and deeper scrutiny is needed to see that in the West the culture of This is a magisterial work of history, an extended tour of the key cultural events of the past five hundred years. It is astonishing in its depth and insight, the kind of book that can change a reader’s views about the developments that led to the modern world. Barzun’s key thesis is summed up in the very first paragraph of the book, “It takes only a look at the numbers to see that the 20th century is coming to an end. A wider and deeper scrutiny is needed to see that in the West the culture of the last 500 years is ending at the same time.” What he sees as coming to an end is the impulse to continuously seek out and discover new lands, new ideas, new music, art, and culture. In its place is ironical detachment, a sense of futility about life and a belief that all notions of progress, development, and enhancement are fundamentally absurd and meaningless. He arrives at this idea by tracing cultural antecedents across the centuries, showing how one milestone built upon another until, somewhere in the late nineteenth century, it all started to run out of steam.

As an example, painting developed a technically brilliant near photo-realism that was impressive but lifeless, and just repeated the same classical tropes over and over. Impressionism provided a bold and innovative new approach, but it exhausted its ideas within a few decades. Cubism held some promise, but it soon devolved into abstraction and irony, so that by the 60s things like a painting of a soup can could be considered a masterpiece. And now what works from the past half century can anyone even remember, much less assign a style or substance to?

Music too bled away from romanticism to modernism to attempts to toss aside all previous conceptions of what music should be, to an embrace of cacophony which was called art. Like painting, music’s ideas have fizzled out, and those who make their living creating it today do so by aping the styles of previous centuries.

If the present really is decadent, getting here was a wild ride, and Barzun is a wonderful guide to the highlights along the way. He is brilliant at recreating the nuances and import of social and cultural trends, from the Reformation through the Age of Kings to the Enlightenment and French Revolution, to Romanticism and finally Modernism. Along the way the reader meets most of the great minds of their times and is shown the complex interactions that led to their new ways of seeing the world. Barzun presents his own opinions and perspectives rather than attempting a strict objectivity, but he is so learned, so well versed in Western culture, that it is hard to argue with him for the most part. One area where he is not as good is his understanding of the sciences, where some of his pronouncements are off base and show a misunderstanding of the ideas and processes at work.

It is hard to speak too highly of this book. This is big-picture history in the grand sense, tracing the key ideas that led to the modern world. It is interesting, informative, and very well written. This is the kind of book that you keep recommending to friends as a must-read. It is worth your time. ...more

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Jul 21, 2017 Sarah Finch rated it liked it

A bit conflicted. This is a tremendous work that reflects years of commitment to studying the anointed western canon of the past half-millennium, and Barzun is a writer whose gifts include both elegance and clarity. It is a rigorous and rewarding read. However, his blind spot for the contributions of women and how western culture inhibited their canonization (and some very strange interpolations of his gendered notions in random spots), his mistaken belief that the American Civil Rights Movement ...more

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Jul 30, 2019 Dierregi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, history

This book is a masterpiece. Rarely have I enjoyed myself so much reading an essay. Barzun presents the past 500 years of Europe’s cultural and historical events with insight and sense of humour. Needless to say, Barzun was a man of immense erudition, but also witty and unsentimental about the cultural future of the Western world.

He offers his dispassionate examination of European and North American decadence in the preface. In a few concise and pitiless paragraph we get the unpleasant truth ...more

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Sep 03, 2019 Paul Gosselin rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, literary-criticism

There is a LOT to digest in this 800 page work. I have to admit that the last 100 page were a bit tedious, but overall, reading this book was time well spent. It does take quite a while before Barzun puts his cards on the table regarding the title of his book and explains what he means by "decadence". As for the perspective of this work, Barzun’s worldview is, for the most part, moulded by the Enlightenment though he does allow himself some critical distance (more obvious in an older work, ...more

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Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Expanded Table of Contents for Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence	3	44	Jan 20, 2010 05:28PM
The History Book ...: 19. FROM DAWN... October 5 ~ October 11- Part Four - Chapter XXVII and XXVIII (763 - 802) Non-Spoiler	1	24	Oct 04, 2009 06:57PM
The History Book ...: 5. FROM DAWN... June 29 ~ July 5 ~~ Part One - Chapter VIII (169-190) Non-Spoiler	29	26	Oct 02, 2009 03:25PM
The History Book ...: 18. FROM DAWN... September 28 ~ October 4- Part Four - Chapter XXVI and XXVII (713 - 763) Non-Spoiler	2	14	Sep 29, 2009 11:57PM
The History Book ...: 15th Century (Jacque Barzun's Analysis)	7	32	Sep 26, 2009 08:34PM
The History Book ...: 16th Century (Jacque Barzun's Analysis)	8	22	Sep 26, 2009 08:26PM
The History Book ...: 20th Century (Jacque Barzun's Analysis)	9	26	Sep 26, 2009 08:19PM

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About Jacques Barzun

Jacques Barzun

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Jacques Martin Barzun was a French-born American historian of ideas and culture.

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“Let us face a pluralistic world in which there are no universal churches, no single remedy for all diseases, no one way to teach or write or sing, no magic diet, no world poets, and no chosen races, but only the wretched and wonderfully diversified human race.” — 20 likes

“The book, like the bicycle, is a perfect form.” — 13 likes

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