Review of From Dawn to Decadence

Barzun's magnum opus illustrates 500 years of European cultural history, with details focused primarily on the lives, works, and philosophies of key players great and small. Unlike that other eminent French historian Fernand Braudel (who I also adore), Barzun mostly eschews footnotes and endnotes, asserting in plain but erudite language what people thought and why they thought it, and how ideas and movements related to contemporary culture and influenced major events. He makes frequent references to other works of historical scholarship, but chiefly in the form of notes simply stating "The book to read [on this topic] is so-and-so;" Barzun's ideal reader seems to be one who wants to drink as deeply from the well of scholarship as he has. His observations continually return to major themes, such as individualism, self-consciousness, emancipation, analysis, reductivism and primitivism, which he uses to characterize change and continuity among works of art, social movements, and strains of thought. Interlude chapters step back from the personal perspectives to show what it was like to live in certain cities in particular time periods when they were prominent on the world stage.

I recommend this without reservations to anyone who loves history.