From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life - Softcover

Barzun, Jacques

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007115504 ISBN 13: 9780007115501

Verlag: HarperCollins, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

The bestselling (New York Times No. 3) history chronicling half a millennium of Western culture.

From Dawn To Decadence is the French-American historian Jacques Barzun’s great opus. It is the product of a lifetime of separate studies which he now sets down in one powerful narrative, interspersing his entertaining analysis of wars, philosophy, science, manners, sex, religion, morals, art, et al, from the Reformation to the present day, with biographical sketches of influential historical figures (including Luther, Charles V, Descartes, Bacon, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Cromwell, Peter the Great, Defoe, Swift, Rubens, Bach, Byron, Pascal, Florence Nightingale, James Joyce…) His positive conclusion is that the decadence of the current age is merely a watershed for a new age in which Western culture will again flourish.

This is heavyweight history written with great wit and verve, comparable in scope with the Big Ideas and Big Themes history of Paul Kennedy’s Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which was a huge bestseller that was first ‘made’ in the US, and Paul Johnson (The Birth of the Modern; Intellectuals; Twentieth Century Britain). With Barzun’s lucid and easy style it is also a very accesible book which will be eagerly devoured by history and culture lovers alike.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jacques Barzun was born in France in 1907 and moved to the US in 1920. After graduating from Columbia University he joined its faculty as Professor of History, becoming Dean of Faculties and Provost. The author of over thirty books he received the Gold Medal for Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he was twice president.

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'A compelling, magisterial survey… Barzun executes his task with brilliant virtuosity. Ina a sweeping narrative that is always entertaining and often funny, he weaves together strands of European history, ranging effortlessly across nations and disciplines'
LISA JARDINE,' Independent'

'Barzun displays an enviable mastery of the rise of the West since the Renaissance and Reformation… This book is as enjoyable as it is instructive
ROY PORTER, 'The Times'

'A vast book by a capacious mind, A late masterpiece of the liberal tradition – that kind of revivifying work that could help slice a year or two off that century of Boredom, or – eliminate it altogether'
GEORGE WALDEN, 'Evening Standard'

'Barzun's aperçus on the religion, politics, literature, music, art and personalities of the past five centuries add up to what is arguably the best thinking man's bedside book ever written'
PETER GREEN, 'Times Literary Supplement'

'Jacques Barzun is one of the most cultivated exemplars of Western civilisation and his book contains the experience and the reflection of a lifetime. He tells us not to judge past centuries by our standards and to recognise that, however different, those centuries have made us what we are.'
NOEL ANNAN

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: HarperCollins
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2001
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0007115504
• ISBN 13: 9780007115501
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 896
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: WordUnited GmbH; distribution@wordunited.com; ; Theodorstrasse 105; DUSSELDORF; 40472; Deutschland