''From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life'' is a book written by
Jacques Barzun
Jacques Martin Barzun (; November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012) was a French-American historian known for his studies of the history of ideas and cultural history. He wrote about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, mystery novels, and ...
. Published in 2000, it is a large-scale survey history of trends in history, politics, culture, and ideas in Western civilization, and argues that, from approximately the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 20th century, the arc of Western culture comprises the beginning and ending of a distinct historical era.
Description
Barzun published the book when he was 93 years old, and described the book in its prefatory note as the culmination of "a lifetime" of study of Western thought. He organizes the era of study - roughly 1500 to the then-present day of 2000 - into four large-scale periods. The first, spanning approximately 1500 to 1660, revolves principally around questions of religious belief; the second, roughly 1661 to 1789, around questions of how to arrange governance vis-a-vis the individual; the third, spanning approximately 1790 to 1920, around social and economic equality; and the fourth continuing to spin out the effects and influence of the decisions made in those previous eras. He refers to the last era as a period of "
decadence
The word decadence, which at first meant simply "decline" in an abstract sense, is now most often used to refer to a perceived decay in standards, morals, dignity, religious faith, honor, discipline, or skill at governing among the members of ...
", which he describes as follows.
All that is meant by Decadence is "falling off." It implies in those who live in such a time no loss of energy or talent or moral sense. On the contrary, it is a very active time, full of deep concerns, but peculiarly restless, for it sees no clear lines of advance. The loss it faces is that of Possibility. The forms of art as of life seem exhausted, the stages of development have been run through. Institutions function painfully. Repetition and frustration are the intolerable result. Boredom and fatigue are great historical forces."
The book is divided into four sections corresponding to the four periods mentioned above, which are then subdivided into chapters, some of which are organized around specific ideas, and others around what he calls "cross-sections" of cities or regions at particular historical moments. Barzun addresses trends in religious and philosophical thought, ideas about governance, politics, and political economy, literature, visual art, music, stage works, science and technology, manners and fashion, and other aspects of Western culture, interlinking them into a broad history of ideas. He highlights several recurrent themes throughout Western thought, including Abstraction, Analysis, Emancipation, Individualism, Primitivism, Scientism, Secularism, and Self-Consciousness. He argues that "the peoples of the West offered the world a set of ideas and institutions not found earlier or elsewhere", and that "it has pursued characteristic purposes - that is its unity - and now these purposes, carried out to their utmost possibility, are bringing about its demise."
The front cover image is a detail from ''
The Romans in their Decadence
''The Romans in their Decadence'' (french: link=no, Les Romains de la décadence) is a painting by the French artist Thomas Couture, first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1847, a year before the 1848 Revolution which toppled the July Monarchy. ...
'', an 1848 painting by
Thomas Couture
Thomas Couture (21 December 1815 – 30 March 1879) was a French history painter and teacher. He taught such later luminaries of the art world as Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, John La Farge,Wilkinson, Burke. ''The Life and Works of A ...
.
Reception
''From Dawn to Decadence'' received considerable notice in the literary and popular press upon its release. ''
Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
'', in its review, described Barzun as "the last of the great polymath scholars" and praised the book as "the damnedest story you'll ever read", while noting minor displeasure with Barzun's "mandarin snippiness" about modern-day cultural life and a "few trifling errors". ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' said the work was "a history of ideas, not a historical narrative; it is an interpretation, not a description of what happened". The review praised Barzun for writing in "a light, lucid, epigrammatic style", but described his judgments of historical figures as "at best otiose and...
t times
T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is deri ...
ludicrously banal." In the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'',
William Everdell
William Romeyn Everdell is an American teacher and author.
Biography
Born in 1941, he graduated from St. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire), St. Paul's School and from Princeton University. A Woodrow Wilson Scholar and Fulbright Scholar, he ...
said the book was "encyclopedic without being discontinuous" and "peerless - on every century but
he twentieth
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
, chiding Barzun for minor errors and for "writ
ngthe history of liberalism as if democracy had not improved it." ''
First Things
''First Things'' (''FT'') is an ecumenical and conservative religious journal aimed at "advanc nga religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society". The magazine, which focuses on theology, liturgy, church history, religio ...
'' remarked, "We get assessments, sometimes quite idiosyncratic ones, of almost all the great names of the modern era, but many of the biographies are of persons the author deems worthy-but-obscure."
Roger Kimball
Roger Kimball (born 1953) is an American art critic and conservative social commentator. He is the editor and publisher of ''The New Criterion'' and the publisher of Encounter Books. Kimball first gained notice in the early 1990s with the public ...
reviewed the book for ''
The New Criterion
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'', adjudging the book "a magnificent ''summa'' of his concerns as a thinker and historian."
Roger Kimball
Roger Kimball (born 1953) is an American art critic and conservative social commentator. He is the editor and publisher of ''The New Criterion'' and the publisher of Encounter Books. Kimball first gained notice in the early 1990s with the public ...
,
Barzun on the West
''The New Criterion
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'', June 2000.
References
{{reflist
2000 non-fiction books
HarperCollins books
Books about the West