From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life

The bestselling (New York Times No. 3) history chronicling half a millennium of Western culture.

From Dawn To Decadence is the French-American historian Jacques Barzun’s great opus. It is the product of a lifetime of separate studies which he now sets down in one powerful narrative, interspersing his entertaining analysis of wars, philosophy, science, manners, sex, religion, morals, art, et al, from the Reformation to the present day, with biographical sketches of influential historical figures (including Luther, Charles V, Descartes, Bacon, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Cromwell, Peter the Great, Defoe, Swift, Rubens, Bach, Byron, Pascal, Florence Nightingale, James Joyce…) His positive conclusion is that the decadence of the current age is merely a watershed for a new age in which Western culture will again flourish.

This is heavyweight history written with great wit and verve, comparable in scope with the Big Ideas and Big Themes history of Paul Kennedy’s Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which was a huge bestseller that was first ‘made’ in the US, and Paul Johnson (The Birth of the Modern; Intellectuals; Twentieth Century Britain). With Barzun’s lucid and easy style it is also a very accesible book which will be eagerly devoured by history and culture lovers alike.