French-American historian (1907?2012)
Jacques Barzun
|
---|
Painting of Barzun titled
With Light from a New Dawn
, 1947
|
Born
| Jacques Martin Barzun
(
1907-11-30
)
November 30, 1907
|
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Died
| October 25, 2012
(2012-10-25)
(aged 104)
|
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Alma mater
| Columbia University
(
BA
,
MA
,
PhD
)
|
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Occupation
| Historian
|
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Relatives
| Lucy Barzun Donnelly
(granddaughter)
Matthew Barzun
(grandson)
|
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Jacques Martin Barzun
(
;
[1]
November 30, 1907 ? October 25, 2012) was a French-born 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 classical music, and was also known as a
philosopher of education
.
[2]
In the book
Teacher in America
(1945), Barzun influenced the training of schoolteachers in the United States.
A professor of history at
Columbia College
for many years, he published more than forty books, was awarded the American
Presidential Medal of Freedom
, and was designated a knight of the
French Legion of Honor
. The historical retrospective
From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present
(2000), widely considered his
magnum opus
, was published when he was 93 years old.
[3]
Life
[
edit
]
Jacques Martin Barzun was born in
Creteil
, France, to
Henri-Martin Barzun
[
fr
]
and Anna-Rose Barzun, and spent his childhood in
Paris
and
Grenoble
. His father was a member of the
Abbaye de Creteil
group of artists and writers, and also worked in the
French Ministry of Labor
.
[4]
His parents' Paris home was frequented by many
modernist
artists of
Belle Epoque
France, such as the poet
Guillaume Apollinaire
, the
Cubist
painters
Albert Gleizes
and
Marcel Duchamp
, the composer
Edgard Varese
, and the writers
Richard Aldington
and
Stefan Zweig
.
[4]
While on a diplomatic mission to the United States during the
First World War
(1914?1918), Barzun's father so liked the country he decided that his son should receive an American
university education
; thus, the twelve-year-old Jacques Martin attended
Lycee Janson-de-Sailly
until moving to America, where he graduated from
Harrisburg Technical High School
in 1923 and then went off to
Columbia University
, where he obtained a
liberal arts education
.
[5]
[6]
As an undergraduate at
Columbia College
, Barzun was drama critic for the
Columbia Daily Spectator
, a prize-winning president of the
Philolexian Society
, the Columbia literary and debate club, and
valedictorian
of the class of 1927.
[7]
He obtained a Master's degree in 1928
[8]
and a Ph.D. in 1932 from Columbia, and taught history there from 1928 to 1955, becoming the
Seth Low
Professor of History and a founder of the discipline of
cultural history
. For years, he and
literary critic
Lionel Trilling
conducted Columbia's famous
Great Books
course. He was elected Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
in 1954
[9]
and a member of the
American Philosophical Society
in 1984.
[10]
From 1955 to 1968, he served as Dean of the Graduate School, Dean of Faculties, and
Provost
, while also being an Extraordinary Fellow of
Churchill College
at the
University of Cambridge
. From 1968 until his 1975 retirement, he was University Professor at Columbia. From 1951 to 1963 Barzun was one of the managing editors of
The Readers' Subscription Book Club
, and its successor the
Mid-Century Book Society
(the other managing editors being
W. H. Auden
and
Lionel Trilling
), and afterwards was Literary Adviser to
Charles Scribner's Sons
, 1975 to 1993.
In 1936, Barzun married Mariana Lowell, a violinist from a
prominent Boston family
. They had three children: James, Roger, and Isabel.
[11]
Mariana died in 1979. In 1980, Barzun married Marguerite Lee Davenport. From 1996 the Barzuns lived in her hometown,
San Antonio
,
Texas
. His granddaughter
Lucy Barzun Donnelly
was a producer of the award-winning
HBO
film
Grey Gardens
. His grandson,
Matthew Barzun
, is a businessman who served from 2009-2011 as the
U.S. Ambassador to Sweden
, and from 2013-2017 as
Ambassador to the United Kingdom
. On May 14, 2012 Jacques Barzun attended a symphony performance in his honor at which works by his favorite composer,
Hector Berlioz
, were performed.
[12]
He attended in a wheelchair and delivered a brief address to the crowd.
Barzun died at his home in
San Antonio
,
Texas
on October 25, 2012, aged 104.
The New York Times
, which compared him with such scholars as
Sidney Hook
,
Daniel Bell
, and
Lionel Trilling
, called him a "distinguished historian, essayist, cultural gadfly and educator who helped establish the modern discipline of cultural history".
[13]
Naming
Edward Gibbon
,
Jacob Burckhardt
and
Thomas Babington Macaulay
as his intellectual ancestors, and calling him "one of the West's most eminent historians of culture" and "a champion of the liberal arts tradition in higher education," who "deplored what he called the 'gangrene of specialism'",
The Daily Telegraph
remarked, "The sheer scope of his knowledge was extraordinary. Barzun's eye roamed over the full spectrum of Western music, art, literature and philosophy."
[14]
Essayist
Joseph Epstein
, remembering him in the
Wall Street Journal
as a "flawless and magisterial" writer who tackled "
Darwin
,
Marx
,
Wagner
,
Berlioz
,
William James
,
French verse
,
English
prose
composition, university teaching,
detective fiction
, [and] the state of intellectual life", described Barzun as a tall, handsome man with an understated elegance, thoroughly Americanized, but retaining an air of old-world culture, cosmopolitan in an elegant way rare for intellectuals".
[15]
Career
[
edit
]
Over seven decades, Barzun wrote and edited more than forty books touching on an unusually broad range of subjects, including
science
and
medicine
,
psychiatry
from
Robert Burton
through
William James
to modern methods, and
art
, and
classical music
; he was one of the all-time authorities on
Hector Berlioz
. Some of his books?particularly
Teacher in America
and
The House of Intellect
?enjoyed a substantial lay readership and influenced debate about culture and education far beyond the realm of academic history. Barzun had a strong interest in the tools and mechanics of writing and
research
. He undertook the task of completing, from a manuscript almost two-thirds of which was in first draft at the author's death, and editing (with the help of six other people), the first edition (published 1966) of
Follett's Modern American Usage
. Barzun was also the author of books on
literary style
(
Simple and Direct
, 1975), on the crafts of
editing
and
publishing
(
On Writing, Editing, and Publishing
, 1971), and on
research methods
in
history
and the other
humanities
(
The Modern Researcher
, which has seen at least six editions, and is one of the thousand most widely held library items according to the OCLC
[16]
).
Barzun did not disdain popular culture: his varied interests included
detective fiction
and
baseball
.
[17]
His widely quoted statement, "Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball." was inscribed on a plaque at the
Baseball Hall of Fame
.
[18]
He edited and wrote the introduction to the 1961 anthology,
The Delights of Detection
, which included stories by
G. K. Chesterton
,
Dorothy L. Sayers
,
Rex Stout
, and others. In 1971, Barzun co-authored (with Wendell Hertig Taylor),
A Catalogue of Crime
: Being a Reader's Guide to the Literature of Mystery, Detection, & Related Genres
, for which he and his co-author received a Special
Edgar Award
from the
Mystery Writers of America
the following year.
[19]
Barzun was also an advocate
of
supernatural fiction
, and wrote the introduction to
The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
.
[20]
Barzun was a proponent of the theatre critic and diarist
James Agate
, whom he compared in stature to
Samuel Pepys
.
[21]
Barzun edited Agate's last two diaries into a new edition in 1951 and wrote an informative introductory essay, "Agate and His Nine Egos".
[22]
Jacques Barzun continued to write on education and cultural history after retiring from Columbia. At 84 years of age, he began writing his
swan song
, to which he devoted the better part of the 1990s. The resulting book of more than 800 pages,
From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present
, revealed a vast erudition and brilliance undimmed by advanced age. Historians, literary critics, and popular reviewers all lauded
From Dawn to Decadence
as a sweeping and powerful survey of modern Western history, and it became a
New York Times
bestseller. With this work he gained an international reputation.
[23]
Reviewing it in the
New York Times
, historian
William Everdell
called the book "a great achievement" by a scholar "undiminished in his scholarship, research and polymathic interests," while also scrutinizing Barzun's scant treatment of figures like
Walt Whitman
and
Karl Marx
.
[24]
The book introduces several novel
typographic
devices that aid an unusually rich system of cross-referencing and help keep many strands of thought in the book under organized control. Most pages feature a
sidebar
containing a pithy quotation, usually little known, and often surprising or humorous, from some author or historical figure. In 2007, Barzun commented that "Old age is like learning a new profession. And not one of your own choosing."
[25]
As late as October 2011, one month before his 104th birthday, he reviewed
Adam Kirsch
's
Why Trilling Matters
for the
Wall Street Journal
.
[26]
In his philosophy of writing history, Barzun emphasized the role of storytelling over the use of academic jargon and detached analysis. He concluded in
From Dawn to Decadence
that "history cannot be a science; it is the very opposite, in that its interest resides in the particulars".
[27]
Recognition
[
edit
]
In 1968, Barzun received the
St. Louis Literary Award
from the
Saint Louis University
Library Associates.
[28]
[29]
Barzun was appointed a Chevalier of the National Order of the
Legion of Honour
.
[30]
In 2003, he was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom
by President
George W. Bush
.
In 1993, his book "An Essay on French Verse: For Readers of English Poetry" won the
Poetry Society of America
's Melville Cane Poetry Award.
On October 18, 2007, he received the 59th Great Teacher Award of the Society of Columbia Graduates
in absentia
.
On March 2, 2011, Barzun was awarded the 2010
National Humanities Medal
by President
Barack Obama
, although he was not expected to be in attendance.
[31]
[32]
On April 16, 2011, he received the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement
in absentia
.
The
American Philosophical Society
honors Barzun with its Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History, awarded annually since 1993 to the author of a recent distinguished work of cultural history. He also received the Gold Medal for Criticism from the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
, of which he was twice president.
Works
[
edit
]
- 1927
Samplings and Chronicles: Being the Continuation of the Philolexian Society History, with Literary Selections from 1912 to 1927
(editor). Philolexian Society.
- 1932
The French Race: Theories of Its Origins and Their Social and Political Implications
. P.S. King & Son.
- 1937
Race: A Study in Modern Superstition
(Revised, 1965
Race: A Study in Superstition
). Methuen & Co. Ltd.
- 1939
Of Human Freedom
. Revised edition, Greenwood Press Reprint, 1977:
ISBN
0-8371-9321-4
.
- 1941
Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage
.
ISBN
978-1-4067-6178-8
.
- 1943
Romanticism and the Modern Ego
. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1943.
- 1945
Teacher in America
. Reprint Liberty Fund, 1981.
ISBN
0-913966-79-7
. Also published as:
We Who Teach
. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1946.
- 1950
Berlioz and the Romantic Century
. Boston: Little, Brown and Company / An Atlantic Monthly Press Book, 1950 [2 vols.].
- 1951
Pleasures of Music: A Reader's Choice of Great Writing About Music and Musicians From Cellini to Bernard Shaw
Viking Press.
- 1954
God's Country and Mine: A Declaration of Love, Spiced with a Few Harsh Words
. Reprint Greenwood Press, 1973:
ISBN
0-8371-6860-0
.
- 1956
Music in American Life
. Indiana University Press.
- 1956
The Energies of Art: Studies of Authors, Classic and Modern
. Greenwood,
ISBN
0-8371-6856-2
.
- 1959
The House of Intellect
. Reprint Harper Perennial, 2002:
ISBN
978-0-06-010230-2
.
- 1960
Lincoln the Literary Genius
(first published in
The Saturday Evening Post
, February 14, 1959)
- 1961
The Delights of Detection
. Criterion Books.
- 1961
Classic, Romantic, and Modern
. Reprint University of Chicago Press, 1975:
ISBN
0-226-03852-1
.
- 1964
Science: The Glorious Entertainment
. HarperCollins.
ISBN
0-06-010240-3
.
- 1967
What Man Has Built
(introductory booklet to the Great Ages of Man book series). Time Inc.
- 1968
The American University: How It Runs, Where It Is Going
. Reprint University of Chicago Press, 1993:
ISBN
0-226-03845-9
.
- 1969
Berlioz and the Romantic Century
(3d ed.).
- 1971
On Writing, Editing, and Publishing
. University of Chicago Press.
- 1971
A Catalogue of Crime: Being a Reader's Guide to the Literature of Mystery, Detection, and Related Genres
(with Wendell Hertig Taylor). Revised edition, Harper & Row, 1989:
ISBN
0-06-015796-8
.
- 1974
Clio and the Doctors
. Reprinted University of Chicago Press, 1993:
ISBN
0-226-03851-3
.
- 1974
The Use and Abuse of Art
(
A. W. Mellon Lectures
in the Fine Arts) . Princeton University Press.
ISBN
0-691-01804-9
.
- 1975
Simple and Direct: A Rhetoric for Writers
. 4th ed, Harper Perennial, 2001:
ISBN
0-06-093723-8
.
- 1976
The Bibliophile of the Future: His Complaints about the Twentieth Century
(Maury A. Bromsen lecture in humanistic bibliography). Boston Public Library.
ISBN
0-89073-048-2
.
- 1980
Three Talks at Northern Kentucky University
. Northern Kentucky University, Dept. of Literature and Language.
- 1982
Lincoln's Philosophic Vision
. Artichokes Creative Studios.
- 1982
Critical Questions: On Music and Letters, Culture and Biography, 1940?1980
(edited by Bea Friedland). University of Chicago Press.
ISBN
0-226-03864-5
.
- 1982
Berlioz and His Century: An Introduction to the Age of Romanticism
(Abridgment of
Berlioz and the Romantic Century
). University of Chicago Press.
ISBN
0-226-03861-0
.
- 1983
A Stroll with William James
. Reprint University of Chicago Press, 2002:
ISBN
978-0-226-03869-8
.
- 1986
A Word or Two Before You Go: Brief Essays on Language
. Wesleyan University.
- 1989
The Culture We Deserve: A Critique of Disenlightenment
. Wesleyan University.
ISBN
0-8195-6237-8
.
- 1991
An Essay on French Verse: For Readers of English Poetry
. New Directions Publishing.
ISBN
0-8112-1158-4
.
- 1991
Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning
. University of Chicago Press.
ISBN
0-226-03846-7
.
- 2000
From Dawn to Decadence
: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present
.
ISBN
978-0-06-092883-4
.
- 2001
Sidelights on Opera at Glimmerglass
. Glimmerglass Opera
- 2002
A Jacques Barzun Reader
.
ISBN
978-0-06-093542-9
.
- 2002
What Is a School? and Trim the College!
(
What Is a School? An Institution in Limbo, Trim the College! A Utopia
). Hudson Institute.
- 2003
The Modern Researcher
(6th ed.) (with
Henry F. Graff
). Wadsworth Publishing.
ISBN
978-0-495-31870-5
.
- 2004
Four More Sidelights on Opera at Glimmerglass: 2001?2004
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Remembering Jacques Barzun: The Age of the Individual: 500 Years Ago Today"
. Center on Capitalism and Society. November 29, 2017.
Archived
from the original on December 12, 2021
. Retrieved
February 12,
2019
.
- ^
Edward Rothstein (October 25, 2012).
"Jacques Barzun Dies at 104; Cultural Critic Saw the Sun Setting on the West"
.
New York Times
. Retrieved
October 25,
2012
.
- ^
Epstein, Joseph (October 26, 2012).
"Jacques Barzun: An Appreciation"
.
Wall Street Journal
.
- ^
a
b
Gathman, Roger (October 13, 2000).
"The Man Who Knew Too Much: Jacques Barzun, Idea Man"
.
The Austin Chronicle
. Retrieved
September 16,
2009
.
- ^
Kelly, Brian P.
"Jacques Barzun, 1907?2012"
.
The New Criterion
. Retrieved
October 2,
2021
.
- ^
Beers, Paul B (2011).
City contented, city discontented : a history of modern Harrisburg
. Midtown Scholar Press. pp. 129?130.
ISBN
978-0-9839571-0-2
.
OCLC
761221337
.
- ^
Thomas Vinciguerra
(June 18, 2008).
"COVER STORY, Living Legacies: Jacques Barzun '27"
.
Columbia College Today
. College.columbia.edu. Archived from
the original
on October 31, 2012
. Retrieved
October 28,
2012
.
- ^
Directory of American Scholars
, 6th ed. (Bowker, 1974), Vol. I, p. 32.
- ^
"Book of Members, 1780?2010: Chapter B"
(PDF)
.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
. Retrieved
May 20,
2011
.
- ^
"APS Member History"
.
search.amphilsoc.org
. Retrieved
May 19,
2022
.
- ^
"Education: Parnassus, Coast to Coast"
.
Time
. June 11, 1956. Archived from
the original
on January 27, 2008
. Retrieved
November 1,
2012
.
- ^
Martin, Deborah (May 14, 2012).
"In the Spotlight: Honoring expert on Berlioz"
.
San Antonio Express-News
.
- ^
Rothstein, Edward
(October 25, 2012).
"Jacques Barzun Dies at 104; Cultural Critic Saw the Sun Setting on the West"
.
New York Times
.
- ^
"Jacques Barzun"
.
The Daily Telegraph
. October 26, 2012.
- ^
Epstein, Joseph (October 26, 2012).
"Jacques Barzun: An Appreciation"
.
Wall Street Journal
.
(subscription required)
- ^
2005 OCLC list of 1000 most catalogued items
- ^
"Jacques Barzun, "Baseball's Best Cultural Critic", Turns His Back on the Game"
. bleacherreport.com. July 6, 2009
. Retrieved
October 26,
2012
.
- ^
Holley, Joe (October 26, 2012).
"Jacques Barzun, wide-ranging cultural historian, dies at 104"
.
Washington Post
.
- ^
"Search the Edgars Database"
.
Mystery Writers of America
. Archived from
the original
on July 31, 2020
. Retrieved
July 4,
2015
.
- ^
"Author and teacher Jacques Barzun has written an authoritative introduction". B. Williams, "A Complete Guide for all lovers
of horror" (Review of
The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
.
The Courier-Mail
, January 31, 1987.
- ^
From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present
, Jacques Barzun, Harper Perennial, 2001.
- ^
The Later Ego. Consisting of Ego 8 and Ego 9. Introduction and notes by Jacques Barzun
, Jacques Barzun, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1951.
- ^
Le Nouvel Observateur
, which said "il a connu un rayonnement international avec la sortie de "From dawn to decadence". L'historien Jacques Barzun, auteur de "From dawn to decandence", est mort
Cree le October 26, 2012 a 07h10,
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/monde/20121026.FAP2051/l-historien-jacques-barzun-auteur-de-from-dawn-to-decandence-est-mort.html
- ^
William R. Everdell,
"Idea Man"
, review of
From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present
by Jacques Barzun,
New York Times
, May 21, 2000.
- ^
Age of Reason
by
Arthur Krystal
in
The New Yorker
, October 22, 2007, p. 103
- ^
Barzun, Jacques.
"Book Review: Why Trilling Matters" (Review)
.
Wall Street Journal
, October 29, 2011. Retrieved on July 24, 2014.
- ^
From Dawn to Decadence
, pp 654?656
- ^
"Website of St. Louis Literary Award"
. Archived from
the original
on August 23, 2016
. Retrieved
July 25,
2016
.
- ^
Saint Louis University Library Associates.
"Recipients of the Saint Louis Literary Award"
. Archived from
the original
on July 31, 2016
. Retrieved
July 25,
2016
.
- ^
Krystal, Arthur, "Age of Reason: In his hundred years, Jacques Barzun has learned a thing or two."
The New Yorker
, October 22, 2007
- ^
"President Obama to Award 2010 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal | The White House"
.
whitehouse.gov
. March 1, 2011
. Retrieved
October 28,
2012
– via
National Archives
.
- ^
"News Archive | National Endowment for the Humanities"
. Neh.gov
. Retrieved
October 28,
2012
.
Sources
[
edit
]
- Art at Our Doorstep: San Antonio Writers and Artists
featuring Jacques Barzun. Edited by Nan Cuba and Riley Robinson (
Trinity University Press
, 2008).
- Arthur Krystal,
Except When I Write
Oxford University Press, 2011), has a chapter on Barzun.
ISBN
978-0-19-978240-6
- Michael Murray,
Jacques Barzun: Portrait of a Mind
(Frederic C. Beil, 2011), authorized biography.
ISBN
978-1-929490-41-7
- Thomas Vinciguerra, "Jacques Barzun '27: Columbia Avatar", Columbia College Today, January 2006
- Helen Hazen,
"Endless Rewriting"
,
The American Scholar
, Spring 2013. On being edited by Barzun.
External links
[
edit
]
- Aeschliman, Michael D.
,
"Jacques Barzun, Historian for All Time"
,
National Review
, May 30, 2021
- Barzun Centennial
website, including tributes
- Site
devoted to writings about Barzun, including interviews
- Kimball, Roger
, "
Barzun on the West
,"
New Criterion
, June 18, 2000
- Society of Columbia Graduates 2007 Great Teacher Award presented to Jacques Barzun
, includes speeches by Henry F. Graff, William Theodore de Bary,
Alan Brinkley
, and others
- Jacques Barzun
Video shown at the 2007 Great Teacher Award banquet
- Eyres, Harry
, "
Honour and Humanity
,"
Financial Times
, August 14, 2010
- Remembering the Work of Jacques Barzun
Review of Barzun's Life and Work, October 26, 2012
- Appearances
on
C-SPAN
- The Intellectual Portrait Series: A Conversation with Jacques Barzun
, Liberty Fund, 2000
- Interview with Barzun in The Austin Chronicle, 2000
- Jacques Barzun interview
, April 23, 2009, Old New York Stories, 2011
- A Conversation with Jacques Barzun (2010)
SoL Center, San Antonio TX, September 12, 2010
- The American Heritage® Dictionary Blog: Jacques Barzun
his responses to a 2012 questionnaire
- Finding aid to the Jacques Barzun papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library
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