From Dawn to Decadence - Jacques Barzun

   2000; 802 pages (plus appendices and notes).  New Author? : Yes.  Full Title: From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life.  Genres : Non-Fiction; European History; History of Civilization and Culture.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

    Hey, let’s read a history book!  And not something short and easy-to-read; let’s find a book that’s more than 800 pages long and written in a “scholarly” style.

    With that many pages, let’s have it cover the last 5 centuries.  It can show how different things were way back in 1500, and what changes occurred to bring us to where we are now.  And for a twist, instead of concentrating on events such as who won what battle, and which king led what army, let’s focus on the cultural aspects of history: Art, Science, Religion, Philosophy, and Social Thought.

    Finally, let’s find a curmudgeonly author, preferably some old French dude.

    Like Jacques Barzun and his fantastic book, From Dawn To Decadence.

What’s To Like...

    From Dawn to Decadence is divided into four chronological revolutions, namely:

        Part 1: The 16^th Century religious revolution

        Part 2: the 17^th Century monarchical revolution

        Part 3: the 18^th/19^th Century French liberal and individualist revolutions, and

        Part 4: the 20^th Century Russian social and collective revolution.

    As indicated above, the book focuses on the cultural aspects of civilization.  Some attention is of course also given to “history” when it’s needed, generally via sections labeled “A View From…”.  Barzun keeps these as short as possible though.  The (American) Civil War gets scant attention, Columbus’s discovery of America is barely noted.  The two World Wars get a bit more ink, probably because Jacques Barzun experienced both of them firsthand.

    The attention to the Arts (Music, Poetry, Plays, Sculpture, Literature, etc.) is incredibly detailed.  Major artists are duly covered, but so are a slew of minor luminaries, many of whom Barzun feels have been unjustly forgotten.  He also demythologizes “revered icons” such as Thoreau, Calvin, Erasmus, and Martin  Luther, pointing out their character warts and blemishes.  I enjoyed reading a French author’s take on American history.  At a time when “my country right or wrong” mentality is again rearing its ugly head, it’s refreshing to read something objective and accurate.

    The book is a trivia lover’s treasure trove.  Some examples: the “real” Jethro Tull, tulip mania, “Ubu”, Balzac’s “Waiting for Gadeau” (by Balzac; now you know from where Samuel Beckett got his title), Manutius, bundling, the origin of the word ‘scientist’, Henry Purcell, John Cage’s magnificent musical composition called 4’3" (YouTube it), how the development of the railroad necessitated the creation of Time Zones, and Erasmus’s disdain for (what was for him) modern music.  Barzun even gives separate indexes for Persons (23 pages) and Subjects (24 pages) for ease of reference.

    The ending is kind of a downer. Barzun revels in the glorious past (as any historian should), but he’s pretty jaded about the present state of things like Sports, Computers, Art, Science, Religion, Acronyms, Language, and Education.  His pet word for all of these is “demotic”, which means (I had to look it up): common, casual, colloquial, used by the masses.  But since Barzun was in his nineties when From Dawn to Decadence was published, I can’t help to wonder if he was dismayed by the speed at which the modern world was whizzing by him.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Valetudinarians (n., plural) : people who are unduly anxious about their health.

Others : Primogeniture (n.); Perdurable (adj.); Rutilant (adj.); Demotic (adj.).

Excerpts...

    We have got into the habit of calling too many things revolutions.  Given a new device or practice that changes our homely habits, we exclaim: “revolutionary!”  But revolutions change more than personal habits or a widespread practice.  They give culture a new face.  Between the great upheaval of the 1500s and the present, only three later ones are of the same order.  True, the history books give the name to a dozen or more such violent events, but in these uprisings it was only the violence that was great.  (pg. 3)

    Judge of my surprise to see poor dear Mrs. Hornem with her arms half round the loins of a huge hussar-like gentleman I never set eyes on before and his more than half round her waist, turning round and round to a d----d see-saw, upside down sort of tune.  I asked what all this means: “Can’t you see they are valtzing – or waltzing?”  (I forget which).  Now that I know what it is, I like it – Horace Hornem, Country gentleman.

    -Byron, “To The Publisher” or “The Waltz” (1812).  (pg. 500)

Monarchy and monotheism go together; in heaven there are no struggles such as one sees among the pagan gods and goddesses.  (pg. 249 )

    From Dawn to Decadence is considered to be Jacques Barzun’s magnum opus, and deservedly so.  For me the book was a slow-but-easy read.  (Is that an oxymoron?)  The abundance of trivia was great when it was interesting, but grew tedious if it was something I had limited interest in, such as Philosophy.

    Or when he gets wordy and pedantic.  Barzun spends 28 pages (!!) discussing the word Eutopian (his preferred spelling) and 26 pages to the word Baroque.  He devotes separate sections (4-8 pages apiece) for discussing the meaning of man, esprit, romantic, and pragmatic.  His discourse about “man” centers on whether it is specifically a male person, or whether it can denote either gender.  As in the term “Renaissance man”.  To his credit, Barzun is an avowed feminist, so such distinctions are important to him.

    At times, his curmudgeon persona also wore thin.  Barzun doesn’t seem to have much trust in Science and Technology, which is a bummer since I’m a chemist.  He also resents anyone calling the Middle Ages barbaric.  Serfs had it pretty good, in his opinion.  OTOH, University students don’t appreciate how good they have it, and Puritans were actually good guys.  Towards the end of the book, when discussing Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and modern Medicine, it seems like he’s struggling to grasp the concepts.

    But let’s be clear; this is a spectacular book, even if it often numbed my brain after 20 or 30 pages.  When that occurred, I just shut it and did some light reading to resuscitate my gray matter.  I’ve read other books that were great, but brain-numbing, such as ones by Brian Greene (reviewed here), David Foster Wallace (reviewed here), and  Fyodor Dostoevsky (reviewed here).  "Mind-numbing" means the book is challenging, and that's generally a good sign.  It just means you'd better be ready to devote some serious reading time to the tome.  It took me six weeks to read make it through From Dawn to Decadence, but I’m glad I tackled it.

    9 Stars.  In case you’re curious about some of the not-so-famous people given major ink in From Dawn to Decadence, here are some examples: Christine de Pisan, John Lilburne (*), Fénelon (*), Giambattista Vico, Pierre Bayle, Beaumarchais, Georg Lichtenberg, Sydney Smith (*), Walter Bagehot (*), and James Agate.  Those marked with an asterisk were particularly noteworthy.