Jacques Barzun

Decadence in the American University

Increasingly, the university becomes the servant of the public desires of the hour, and correspondingly neglects its old duty of waking the moral imagination and disciplining the liberal intellect... The American University: How It Runs, Where It Is Going by Jacques Barzun (356 pages,...

Hope or Despair? Roger Kimball & the Future of Culture

The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia by Roger Kimball. For those who cherish the life of the mind, one of...

A Masterpiece of Cultural History: Jacques Barzun’s “From Dawn to Decadence”

In the history of writing history, there are a handful of volumes that become established as a model due to tone, insightful content and excellence of style. The most recent historical work...

America’s Fin de Siècle: End of a Century or a Civilization?

The Culture We Deserve by Jacques Barzun. Politically America may have won the Cold War, but culturally she has entered the fin de siècle. Despair is chic among youth. Recently a television news hour reported...