Painting of Barzun titled With Light from a New Dawn, 1947 Born Jacques Martin Barzun ( 1907-11-30)November 30, 1907, Died October 25, 2012 ( 2012-10-25) (aged 104), U.S. Occupation Historian Jacques Martin Barzun (November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012) was a French-American known for his studies of the and. He wrote about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, mystery novels, and classical music, and was also known as a. In the book Teacher in America (1945), Barzun influenced the training of schoolteachers in the United States. He published more than forty books, was awarded the American, and was dubbed a knight of the. The historical retrospective From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present (2000), widely considered his, was published when he was 93 years old. Contents.

1. Jacques Barzun Books

Life Jacques Martin Barzun was born in, France, to Henri-Martin and Anna-Rose Barzun, and spent his childhood in and. His father was a member of the group of artists and writers, and also worked in the. His parents' Paris home was frequented by many artists of France, such as the poet, the painters and, the composer, and the writers and. While on a diplomatic mission to the United States during the (1914–18), Barzun's father so liked the country he decided that his son should receive an American; thus, the twelve-year-old Jacques Martin attended a, then, where he obtained a. As an undergraduate at, Barzun was drama critic for the, a prize-winning president of the, the Columbia literary and debate club, and of the class of 1927.

He obtained his Ph.D. From Columbia in 1932 and taught history there from 1928 to 1955, becoming the Professor of History and a founder of the discipline of. For years, he and conducted Columbia's famous course. He was elected Fellow of the in 1954. From 1955 to 1968, he served as Dean of the Graduate School, Dean of Faculties, and, while also being an Extraordinary Fellow of at the.

From 1968 until his 1975 retirement, he was University Professor at Columbia. From 1951 to 1963 Barzun was one of the managing editors of, and its successor the, (the other managing editors being and ), and afterwards was Literary Adviser to, 1975 to 1993. In 1936, Barzun married Mariana Lowell, a violinist from a.

They had three children: James, Roger, and Isabel. Mariana died in 1979. In 1980, Barzun married Marguerite Lee Davenport. From 1996 the Barzuns lived in her hometown,.

His granddaughter was a producer of the award-winning film. His grandson, is a businessman who served from 2009-2011 as the, and in 2013 was appointed. On May 14, 2012 Jacques Barzun attended a symphony performance in his honor at which works by his favorite composer, were performed. He attended in a wheelchair and delivered a brief address to the crowd. Barzun died peacefully at his home in, on October 25, 2012, aged 104., which compared him with such scholars as, and, called him a 'distinguished historian, essayist, cultural gadfly and educator who helped establish the modern discipline of cultural history'. Naming, and as his intellectual ancestors, and calling him 'one of the West's most eminent historians of culture' and 'a champion of the liberal arts tradition in higher education,' who 'deplored what he called the 'gangrene of specialism', remarked, 'The sheer scope of his knowledge was extraordinary.

Barzun’s eye roamed over the full spectrum of Western music, art, literature and philosophy.' Essayist, remembering him in the as a 'flawless and magisterial' writer who tackled ', composition, university teaching, and the state of intellectual life', described Barzun as a tall, handsome man with an understated elegance, thoroughly Americanized, but retaining an air of old-world culture, cosmopolitan in an elegant way rare for intellectuals'. Career Over seven decades, Barzun wrote and edited more than forty books touching on an unusually broad range of subjects, including and, from through to modern methods, and, and; he was one of the all-time authorities on.

Some of his books—particularly Teacher in America and The House of Intellect—enjoyed a substantial lay readership and influenced debate about culture and education far beyond the realm of academic history. Barzun had a strong interest in the tools and mechanics of writing and. He undertook the task of completing, from a manuscript almost two-thirds of which was in first draft at the author's death, and editing (with the help of six other people), the first edition (published 1966) of.

Barzun was also the author of books on ( Simple and Direct, 1975), on the crafts of and ( On Writing, Editing, and Publishing, 1971), and on in and the other ( The Modern Researcher, which has seen at least six editions). Barzun did not disdain popular culture: his varied interests included and. His widely quoted statement, 'Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.' Was inscribed on a plaque at the. He edited and wrote the introduction to the 1961 anthology, The Delights of Detection, which included stories by, and others.

In 1971, Barzun co-authored (with Wendell Hertig Taylor),: Being a Reader's Guide to the Literature of Mystery, Detection, & Related Genres, for which he and his co-author received a Special from the the following year. Barzun was also an advocate of, and wrote the introduction to. Barzun was a proponent of the theatre critic and diarist, whom he compared in stature to. Barzun edited Agate's last two diaries into a new edition in 1951 and wrote an informative introductory essay, 'Agate and His Nine Egos'. From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun Jacques Barzun continued to write on education and cultural history after retiring from Columbia.

At 84 years of age, he began writing his, to which he devoted the better part of the 1990s. The resulting book of more than 800 pages, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present, revealed a vast erudition and brilliance undimmed by advanced age. Historians, literary critics, and popular reviewers all lauded From Dawn to Decadence as a sweeping and powerful survey of modern Western history, and it became a bestseller. With this work he gained an international reputation. The book introduces several novel devices that aid an unusually rich system of cross-referencing and help keep many strands of thought in the book under organized control.

Most pages feature a containing a pithy quotation, usually little known, and often surprising or humorous, from some author or historical figure. In 2007, Barzun commented that 'Old age is like learning a new profession. And not one of your own choosing.' As late as October 2011, one month before his 104th birthday, he reviewed 's Why Trilling Matters for the. In his philosophy of writing history, Barzun emphasized the role of storytelling over the use of academic jargon and detached analysis. He concluded in From Dawn to Decadence that 'history cannot be a science; it is the very opposite, in that its interest resides in the particulars.' Recognition In 1968, Barzun received the from the Library Associates.

Barzun was appointed a Chevalier of the National Order of the. In 2003, he was awarded the by President. In 1993, his book 'An Essay on French Verse: For Readers of English Poetry' won the 's Melville Cane Poetry Award. On October 18, 2007, he received the 59th Great Teacher Award of the Society of Columbia Graduates. On March 2, 2011, Barzun was awarded the 2010 by President, although he was not expected to be in attendance. On April 16, 2011, he received the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement in absentia. The honors Barzun with its Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History, awarded annually since 1993 to the author of a recent distinguished work of cultural history.

He also received the Gold Medal for Criticism from the, of which he was twice president. Bibliography.

1927 Samplings and Chronicles: Being the Continuation of the Philolexian Society History, with Literary Selections From 1912 to 1927 (editor). Philolexian Society. 1932 The French Race: Theories of Its Origins and Their Social and Political Implications.

1937 Race: a Study in Modern Superstition (Revised, 1965 Race: A Study in Superstition). Methuen & Co. 1939 Of Human Freedom. Revised edition, Greenwood Press Reprint, 1977:.

1941 Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage. 1943 Romanticism and the Modern Ego.

Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1943. 1945 Teacher in America. Reprint Liberty Fund, 1981. 1950 Berlioz and the Romantic Century. Boston: Little, Brown and Company/An Atlantic Monthly Press Book, 1950 2 vols. 1951 Pleasures of Music: a Reader's Choice of Great Writing About Music and Musicians From Cellini to Bernard Shaw Viking Press. 1954 God's Country and Mine: A Declaration of Love, Spiced with a Few Harsh Words.

Reprint Greenwood Press, 1973:. 1956 Music in American Life. Indiana University Press. 1956 The Energies of Art: Studies of Authors, Classic and Modern.

1959 The House of Intellect. Reprint Harper Perennial, 2002:. 1960 Lincoln the Literary Genius (first published in, February 14, 1959). 1961 The Delights of Detection.

Criterion Books. 1961 Classic, Romantic, and Modern. Reprint University Of Chicago Press, 1975:. 1964 Science: The Glorious Entertainment. 1967 What Man Has Built (introductory booklet to the Great Ages of Man book series). 1968 The American University: How It Runs, Where It Is Going.

Reprint University Of Chicago Press, 1993:. 1969 Berlioz and the Romantic Century (3d ed.). 1971 On Writing, Editing, and Publishing. University of Chicago Press. 1971 (with Wendell Hertig Taylor). Revised edition, Harper & Row, 1989:.

1974 Clio and the Doctors. Reprinted University Of Chicago Press, 1993:. 1974 The Use and Abuse of Art ( in the Fine Arts).

Princeton University Press. 1975 Simple and Direct: A Rhetoric for Writers.

4th ed, Harper Perennial, 2001:. 1976 The Bibliophile of the Future: His Complaints about the Twentieth Century (Maury A.

Jacques Barzun Books

Bromsen lecture in humanistic bibliography). Boston Public Library. 1980 Three Talks at Northern Kentucky University. Northern Kentucky University, Dept. Of Literature and Language.

1982 Lincoln's Philosophic Vision. Artichokes Creative Studios. 1982 Critical Questions: On Music and Letters, Culture and Biography, 1940–1980 (edited by Bea Friedland).

University Of Chicago Press. 1982 Berlioz and His Century: An Introduction to the Age of Romanticism (Abridgment of Berlioz and the Romantic Century). University Of Chicago Press. 1983 A Stroll with William James. Reprint University of Chicago Press, 2002:.

1986 A Word or Two Before You Go: Brief Essays on Language. Wesleyan University. 1989 The Culture We Deserve: A Critique of Disenlightenment. Wesleyan University. 1991 An Essay on French Verse: For Readers of English Poetry. New Directions Publishing. 1991 Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning.

University Of Chicago Press. 2000 From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present.

2001 Sidelights on Opera at Glimmerglass. Glimmerglass Opera. 2002 A Jacques Barzun Reader. 2002 What is a School? And Trim the College!

( What is a School? An Institution in Limbo, Trim the College!

Hudson Institute. 2003 The Modern Researcher (6th ed.) (with Henry F. Wadsworth Publishing. 2004 Four More Sidelights on Opera at Glimmerglass: 2001–2004 See also.

This classic introduction to the techniques of research and the art of expression is used widely in history courses, but is also appropriate for writing and research methods courses in other departments. Barzun and Graff thoroughly cover every aspect of research, from the selection of a topic through the gathering, analysis, writing, revision, and publication of findings presenting the process not as a set of rules but through actual cases that put the subtleties of research in a useful context. Part One covers the principles and methods of research; Part Two covers writing, speaking, and getting one's work published.