New Releases by Jacques Barzun

La obra cumbre del historiador Jacques Barzun es una magnífica síntesis de nuestra historia moderna: un apasionante recorrido de Occidente desde el Renacimiento y la Reforma hasta nuestros días. El historiador Jacques Barzun, reconocido internacionalmente por sus más de treinta obras sobre historia y crítica cultural, nos ofrece en una narración única la suma de sus descubrimientos y conclusiones sobre la cultura de Occidente desde el año 1500. Describe la forja del hombre occidental a partir del Renacimiento y la Reforma hasta el presente, bajo una doble luz: la de aquellos tiempos y la de nuestros intereses en los albores del siglo XXI. Los triunfos y derrotas ocurridos en esos quinientos años conforman una inspirada saga que modifica la visión de este periodo como una época de opresión por parte de los hombres blancos europeos. Las mujeres y sus proezas son sobresalientes, y la libertad (incluso la sexual) no es un invento de las últimas décadas. Y cuando Barzun valora el presente como declive y no como culminación, no lo hace en absoluto como un profeta apocalíptico. Por el contrario, muestra que la decadencia es el cierre inevitable de las grandes épocas, condición necesaria para la creación de la novedad, que surgirá pronto, tal vez mañana. La crítica ha dicho : «Sin duda alguna, este libro sobrevivirá para deleitar y provocar a los lectores del siglo XXI; incluso asombrara a los del siglo XXII por su preclaridad.» The New York Times Book Review «Este libro pasará a la Historia... Supone el triunfo de la sabiduría sin ataduras.» Newsweek «¿Cuántas veces en la vida se encuentra uno frente a una obra maestra? Esta obra, sin ninguna duda, lo es.» National Review

Additional Contributing Authors Include Archibald MacLeish, M. Bundy, R. F. Goheen, And Many Others.

On répète depuis des décennies que le musée est en crise, qu''il néglige le public, qu''en interdisant toute véritable expérience sensible il ne génère que fatigue et ennui. Pour concevoir sa rénovation il fallait quelqu''un qui fût extérieur au musée, sinon étranger, comme c''était le cas du grand théoricien des médias, Marshall McLuhan, qui devait tôt ou tard rencontrer sous les traits du musée, sinon le plus emblématique et le plus problématique de tous les médias, en tout cas le plus chargé de valeur symbolique. Pourfendeur du modèle linéaire issu de la "Galaxie Gutenberg", McLuhan imagine un musée débarrassé du conditionnement par la lecture livresque. Parmi les solutions proposées : des objets sans explications afin d''éviter toute intellectualisation et favoriser l''expérience sensible ; l''exposition de substituts à manipuler de manière à développer la dimension tactile du musée ; la volonté d''amener le public à inventer lui-même son parcours de façon non linéaire ; la promotion d''un "musée multimédia", issu des anciens modes de perception tribaux... Ce volume - essentiel pour qui s''intéresse à l''avenir du musée - constitue la transcription d''un séminaire tenu en octobre 1967 au Musée de la Ville de New York, avec pour toile de fond l''Exposition universelle de Montréal (EXPO''67). Les débats sont animés par Marshall McLuhan et le designer Harley Parker, la conférence de conclusion est prononcée par le Français Jacques Barzun alors professeur à l''Université de Columbia.

本书作者以一个文化历史学家的立场和态度,重新审视了被人们未加推敲的种种惯性思维所掩埋的浪漫主义,以确凿的史实和严谨的分析挑战教科书中的陈词滥调,以逆流而上的勇气揭穿了富有煽动性的史学界的时髦谬论。

Throughout his career Jacques Barzun, author of the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award Finalist From Dawn to Decadence, has always been known as a witty and graceful essayist, one who combines a depth of knowledge and a rare facility with words. Now Michael Murray has carefully selected eighty of Barzun''s most inventive, accomplished, and insightful essays, and compiled them in one impressive volume. With subjects ranging from history to baseball to crime novels, A Jacques Barzun Reader is a feast for any reader.

In this international bestseller, originally published in 1959, Jacques Barzun, acclaimed author of From Dawn to Decadence, takes on the whole intellectual -- or pseudo-intellectual -- world, attacking it for its betrayal of Intellect. "Intellect is despised and neglected," Barzun says, "yet intellectuals are well paid and riding high." He details this great betrayal in such areas as public administrations, communications, conversation and home life, education, business, and scholarship. In this edition''s new Preface, Jacques Barzun discussess the intense -- and controversial -- reaction the world had to The House of Intellect.

A fter a lifetime of writing and editing prose, Jacques Barzun has set down his view of the best ways to improve one''s style. His discussions of diction, syntax, tone, meaning, composition, and revision guide the reader through the technique of making the written word clear and agreeable to read. Exercises, model passages both literary and casual, and hundreds of amusing examples of usage gone wrong show how to choose the right path to self-expression in forceful and distinctive words.

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.

In An Essay on French Verse-For Readers of English Poetry, Jacques Barzun addresses the baffling English prejudice against French poetry. Barzun''s many-faceted and entertaining study muses on six hundred years of French verse, its rules and forms and how they evolved. It also has significant sections on the French language itself, its sounds and difficulties; on verse music in language generally; on the character and achievements of the greatest French poets; and finally, on the social and political conditions that encouraged successive innovations, including the prevailing wordwide practice of free verse. The Essay, moreover, draws not only on a lifetime''s reading, but on personal reminiscences as well: of stuffy poetry lessons in the French lycée; of the poet Apollinaire expounding his views on language to amuse the child sitting on his knee; of the author''s great-grandmother telling him about proper French pronunciation, as it was in her youth, eighty years earlier. In sum, Barzun''s book goes a long way toward answering the question posed in 1917 by A. E. Housman to André Gide: How is it that every nation has produced poetry except France?

The title of this collection of short essays on language and correct usage by one of America''s eminent scholars is from Othello''s last soliloquy. Most of these pieces appeared previously, primarily in American Scholar, The Atlantic and Columbia magazines, which Barzun has revised for consistency and timeliness and added material to balance the book. Among his themes are vigilance against corruption of English by technocrats, and "media hacks", the importance of precise expression; and appreciation for rich heritage of English language. Includes a selected bibliogrpahy of other essays on language by the author. ISBN 0-8195-5174-0 : $14.95.

This collection of writings allows the reader a rare opportunity to see Barzun''s lively, engaging, rich, and original mind at work on several strategic areas of cultural inquiry: music and the musical life, esthetics, biography, criticism, and social commentary. Barzun makes use of a variety of contexts as a forum for evidence and opinion, including essays, program notes, letters, and reviews. And he approaches a wide variety of particular and general questions. What is it like to sit in on a recording session with a great orchestra? What is the role of the piano in Western culture? What is art in relation to objective reality and to the perceiving mind? Can one translate music into words? What is cultural history? For anyone unfamiliar with Barzun''s work, Critical Questions will serve as a valuable introduction to one of the most important cultural historians of our time. Others will be glad to have these pieces—most of them no longer easily available—brought together in a single volume. Uniformly insightful, provocative, and a pleasure to read, they show the consistency of Barzun''s thought even as they exhibit diversity.

With this book, Jacques Barzun pays what he describes as an "intellectual debt" to William James-psychologist, philosopher, and, for Barzun, guide and mentor. Commenting on James''s life, thought, and legacy, Barzun leaves us with a wise and civilized distillation of the great thinker''s work.

Covers writers who have made significant contributions to European literature. Includes in-depth critical and biographical analysis.

The spreading vogue of psycho-history and what the author has christened "quanto-history" raises fundamental questions of theory and practice about both history and the new methods applied to it. In this work Jacques Barzun presents his credo as a historian, criticizing the "new" techniques and contrasting them with his idea of the true spirit of historical inquiry. --Book jacket.

Philosophical treatise on social, political and intellectual freedom.

INSTRUCTIVE MANUAL ON HOW TO GATHER AND ORGANIZE FACTS.

Drawing from the works of influential figures in art and literature, the author traces the development of romanticism from classicism and the emergence of the modern ego.