Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a marvelously entertaining and eye-opening "unpartisan review" of man's (men, women, teenagers) cultural achievements in the last 500 years in the West. Barzun shows us a vision of the past that is coherent, comprehensive, undulating, and various. His "poised-pen" portraits and felicitous quoting make recognizable dozens of thinkers and artists whose past acts give shape to what we think and feel today. His tips for further reading are a great reminder that, unlike science and techne, good history is never obsolete. Although Barzun considers the present a time of decadence, this, his greatest work, will give many of us heart as we create (humanly speaking) the unknown future. Reading the book again in 2010, I like it even more than when I first read it. The book covers a lot of ground at different levels. It is "mountainous" as the author said of one of his favorites, Montaigne. To help readers over the terrain, I have constructed an expanded table of contents of the book: [...]. Enjoy the book. May 9, 2011: Readers who enjoyed "From Dawn to Decadence," which the author said took "a lifetime to prepare," will also enjoy Michael Murray's account of that lifetime: Jacques Barzun: Portrait of a Mind.