(Book) Jacques Barzun: From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life (2000)

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.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060928832/

In more than half a century of service to Columbia and three decades since, Jacques Barzun has epitomized the potential of liberal education within the University and without. He distinguished himself not only as one of Columbia's most outstanding professors and scholars, but also in a wide variety of delicate administrative positions. A prolific author for both the specialist and the general reader, he published as author or editor more than 30 critical and historical studies over the past eight decades, Barzun is perhaps best known to students for his The Modern Researcher, now in its sixth edition, and to teachers for The American University (1968). His surprise bestseller, From Dawn to Decadence, was published in 2000. In 2003, Barzun was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian award.

Adapted from Timothy P. Cross, An Oasis of Order: The Core Curriculum at Columbia College (New York: Columbia College, Office of the Dean, 1995).

http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/jacques_barzun.html