Best Selling Books by Jacques Barzun

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.

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.

Technique of finding and using available materials.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"The old plan and purpose of teaching the young what they truly need to know survives only in the private sector."--Jacques BarzunWith his customary wit and grace, Dr. Barzun contrasts the ritual of education with the lost art of teaching. Twenty-one chapters deal with three major issues: the practice of teaching, the subject matter to be taught, and the institutional and cultural aspects of teaching.Jacques Barzun is a renowned scholar, teacher, and author who lectures widely since his retirement in 1993.

When it was published in 1968, a year noted for historic student protests on campuses across the country, The American University spoke in Jacques Barzun''s characteristically wise and lucid voice about what colleges and universities were really meant to do—and how they actually worked. Drawing on a lifetime of extraordinary accomplishment as a teacher, administrator, and scholar, Barzun here describes the immense demands placed on the university by its competing constituencies—students, faculty, administrators, alumni, trustees, and the political world around it all. "American higher education is fortunate to have had a scholar and intellectual of Jacques Barzun''s stature give so many years of service to the daily bread-and-butter details of running a great university and then share his reflections with us in a literate, humane, and engaging book."—Charles Donovan, America

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.

Criticizes the current educational system, and offers suggestions on curriculum, testing, grading, and teaching methods

Reassesses the stature and contributions of the three, points out their similarities, and attempts to explain why they have come to be so revered.

"The essays in this collection are as diverse as Jacques Barzun''s interests: literature, history, music, teaching, criticism, drama, aesthetics, science. The book includes a personal memoir of his friend and colleague by Lionel Trilling (unfinished at Trilling''s death, it is printed here as he left it), two portraits of Jacques Barzun, and a bibliography of his writings that reflects the wealth and variety of his scholarship..." - Book jacket.

The essence of culture is interpenetration. From any part of it the searching eye will discover connections with another part seemingly remote. If from my descriptions the reader finds this wide-angled view sharpened or expanded, my purpose in publishing these pages will have been served.

The present state of the art, with emphasis on developments since the establishment of the long-playing record industry.

Walter Prescott Webb''s contributions to the study of history, detailing the direction historical studies have taken since Webb wrote. Webb''s historiography and its relationship to classroom instruction is the subject of the second essay, by Elliott West. An appreciation of Webb and a sense of his teaching style are offered by Anne M. Butler and Richard A. Baker, while Dennis Reinhartz discusses the use of maps in the classroom, a practice to which Webb was committed. In a postscript, Llerena Friend writes a personal tribute to her mentor and colleague.

In this abridgment of his monumental study, Berlioz and the Romantic Century, Jacques Barzun recounts the events and extraordinary achievements of the great composer''s life against the background of the romantic era. As the author eloquently demonstrates, Berloiz was an archetype whose destiny was the story of an age, the incarnation of an artistic style and a historical spirit. "In order to understand the nineteenth century, it is essential to understand Berlioz," notes W. H. Auden, "and in order to understand Berlioz, it is essential to read Professor Barzun."

An annotated list of more than five thousand books, including novels, short story collections, histories of the genre, true crime tales, and Sherlock Holmes studies

The lecturer traces the historical development of attitudes toward the arts over the past 150 years, suggesting that the present is a period of cultural liquidation, nothing less than the ending of the modern age that began with the Renaissance.