Book Description
A definitive biography of the legendary leader of the Flying Tigers and the U.S. Fourteenth Air Force in China.
Amazon.com Reviews
In the last half-millennium, as the noted cultural critic and historian Jacques Barzun observes, great revolutions have swept the Western world. Each has brought profound change--for instance, the remaking of the commercial and social worlds wrought by the rise of Protestantism and by the decline of hereditary monarchies. And each, Barzun hints, is too little studied or appreciated today, in a time he does not hesitate to label as decadent.
To leaf through Barzun's sweeping, densely detailed but lightly written survey of the last 500 years is to ride a whirlwind of world-changing events. Barzun ponders, for instance, the tumultuous political climate of Renaissance Italy, which yielded mayhem and chaos, but also the work of Michelangelo and Leonardo--and, he adds, the scientific foundations for today's consumer culture of boom boxes and rollerblades. He considers the 16th-century varieties of religious experimentation that arose in the wake of Martin Luther's 95 theses, some of which led to the repression of individual personality, others of which might easily have come from the "Me Decade." Along the way, he offers a miniature history of the detective novel, defends Surrealism from its detractors, and derides the rise of professional sports, packing in a wealth of learned and often barbed asides.
Never shy of controversy, Barzun writes from a generally conservative position; he insists on the importance of moral values, celebrates the historical contributions of Christopher Columbus, and twits the academic practitioners of political correctness. Whether accepting of those views or not, even the most casual reader will find much that is new or little-explored in this attractive venture into cultural history. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
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 Renaissance 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.
Customer Reviews:
My enduring Top-2 pick for understanding the Meaning of Life book........2007-02-24
I have been reading and comtemplating about the Meaning of My Life for 4-5 years now. After reading many books on a variety of subjects, I still recommend Barzun's book as my Top-2 best book for understanding LIFE, and therefore providing the context for piecing together a meaning for YOUR LIFE. My other top pick is Lessons of History by Will & Ariel Durant. Dawn is not a chronological or objective presentation of history. The book derives coherence by allowing the reader an intimate view inside of one, heavily-opinionated mind. This method might have produced gibberish if the writer was an ordinary scholar. But because Barzan's mind was honed by a lifetime of research, and he was an exceptionally gifted thinker on the subject to begin with, the method produced an exceptionally excellent book. I do not think it is an easy book to read, especially if you do not skip any of the aside comments. You may need to skip parts on the first reading, and come back to it later to cover all of it. However, I think you will definitely feel a sense of achievement after reading it. You may gradually develop wisdom about how to live your own life after reflecting on the human condition covered in such detail over such vast time periods by the book.
This will help every student of art, music, political science,.......2007-01-11
history, religion and literature understand how it came to be and why it was so important.
Barzun is one of the 20th century's greatest literary minds and writers and this proves it all. From country to country, decade to decade, each person is tied to those he met and influenced.
The book containes > and
< symbols with the page numbers so that one can look forward or back to see what is being referenced.
I have read it 3 times and still come back for more.
Good first time around; improves with re-reading.......2006-12-11
I bought and read this book when it came out, and have just read it again -- five years later. It was good the first time I read it, and it gets better the second time around.
Jacques Barzun brings a life of study, lecturing and thought to this whirlwind review of the past half-millennium of Western culture. His opinions are strong, and he is not reluctant to take strong positions, particularly in the latter part of the book which cover the period of his own life (he was 80 when he wrote this book). For the most part I agree with his opinions, and even when I don't I have to admit that his arguments are well articulated and demand an equal measure of rigor from the reader to refute them.
I'm not sure this can really be called a history -- it is more a reasoned dissertation of a point of view. If you want a chronological description of the events of the last 500 years you should probably look elsewhere. But it is certainly fun to read, stimulating, at times infuriating; in its style it is 19th century (it makes me think of Michelet), but in its language it is articulate late-20th century. Jacques Barzun is, I believe, a French immigrant to the United States, so it is a Euro-centric view of development -- and in Prof. Barzun's view, Western culture underwent a fairly linear development and growth (with many reversals all the same) until the early 20th century, when it all began to fall apart...
A final word about Prof. Barzun's writing style. He writes extraordinarily well; it is difficult to imagine that his mother tongue was French. I wish I wrote English as well as he does.
I can heartily recommend this book. It gets better every time. I look forward to re-reading it in 2011.
An epiphany.......2006-11-25
I must confess it was amusing to read the faint praise of multicultural critics on the inside cover, seeing that Barzun excoriates the same politically-correct elites that are in large part responsible for the decline in historical rigor. What is less amusing is that decline itself, and the decline of objectivity and reason in western society on the whole, just as we face new civilizational threats.
If we have often wondered why so many historical works are unreadable, Barzun provides the answer. The targeting of history by ideologues has led to either revisionist trash or pedantic nitpicking by parochial scholars. There was a time, however, when history was read by the mainstream to the same extent as novels or other literature, where synthesis was placed at a premium, where sweeping scope was not frowned upon as naive. With "Dawn", Barzun provides just such a synthesis, and does so with consummate skill and prose so beautiful, the work should serve as a model for future endeavors of a similar stripe.
As the work progresses, it emerges that Barzun is, above all, a teacher. Here is not only a cultural history that emphasizes unappreciated actors and themes, but an urgent recommendation for future exploration. The smart footnote style, inline cross-references and reading suggestions, as well as the callouts of notable quotes operate smoothly to enhance the clarity of ideas. Barzun has a knack for capturing what is interesting to readers and, moreover, for anticipating gaps in the reader's knowledge. Only through a lifetime of scholarship could a work of this depth and scope be successfully executed.
In the end, one is left with a touch of sadness when the last page of "Dawn" is turned -- left, that is, with the poignant realization that Barzun is in his 90s and that he, along with other icons of his generation like Bernard Lewis, will leave shoes behind that today's second-rate revisionists and pedants cannot fill. In this respect, "Dawn" can at least be a monument to the vestiges of a once-great civilization, a lasting admonishment to declining standards even as our values, the "better angels of our nature", disappear.
The Uses of History.......2006-11-23
Given the wonderful reviews below, it would be vain to summarize the structure of this magnificient book. Instead, I'd like to tell you what I think `Dawn to Decadence' can do for you.
* First, and maybe best, you get to spend 802 pages worth of your reading time in the company of a man who has thought long and hard about who we are and has the grace and talent to share it. Jacques Barzun is very good company.
* You'll get to expand your knowledge of your ignorance. How wonderful to be prompted to look at the size of what you don't know! It's the first and in many ways, most luscious step in learning.
* You will lose your sense of what is `human nature' and begin to see a lot of what you thought was part of the human condition as really a piece of human construction. To take one example, the splendid essay on Montaigne reminds us that the very idea of an autonomous self had to be invented and that idea had to struggle against earlier, humoral theories of human nature.
* You will see (and perhaps never forget) a vision of the future in which the tedium of the technological, television era is rolled back by a return to earlier pasttimes and forms. Family poetry readings after dinner? Chamber music on the village green?
In spite of the title, this is a resoundingly optimistic work. It's not too much to say that it will leave you a changed person. I envy any one who gets to read it for the first time and I think I'll distract myself from that envy by reading it again now for the second time.
--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and the forthcoming novel bang-BANG from Kunati Books. ISBN 9781601640005
Customer Reviews:
Entertaining While Instructive.......2005-08-22
I do not know how Jacques Barzun did it. He takes us through five hundred years of Western cultural history, lards the book with the most esoteric and complex information, and yet somehow manages to make this book a breathless "page-turner." His sure-footed erudition grounds him so securely that he can make forays into the outré, the weird, the seemingly trivial, and then come back to relate it to a baseline of solid historical narrative. One sees connections never noticed, or even imagined, before. One learns of important figures who somehow have avoided the glare of modern scrutiny. I had the feeling I was in the presence of the best college professor I could ever hope to have, and was never intimidated; I just didn't want to miss the next class. [Maybe that's because I knew there was no final exam!]
One appreciates Barzun's decidedly conservative notion that old values matter. He gives political correctness a clop in the chops. He defends some currently dismissed figures like Columbus. And even though he is not terribly sanguine about current cultural trends, he is basically optimistic about the future.
Oh, to have Professor Barzun and me sitting on the two ends of a log, talking, talking. Wait: that's what we have here. Lucky me. Lucky us.
Average customer rating:
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Closing time? Jacques Barzun on Western culture.(Review) (book review): An article from: New Criterion
Roger Kimball
Manufacturer: Foundation for Cultural Review
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ASIN: B0008J0Q1Q
Release Date: 2005-07-28 |
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This digital document is an article from New Criterion, published by Foundation for Cultural Review on June 1, 2000. The length of the article is 4600 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Closing time? Jacques Barzun on Western culture.(Review) (book review)
Author: Roger Kimball
Publication:
New Criterion (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 1, 2000
Publisher: Foundation for Cultural Review
Volume: 18
Issue: 10
Page: 5
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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Concerned with everything in the universe.(Book Review): An article from: Humanitas
Robert M. Woods
Manufacturer: National Humanities Institute
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Release Date: 2005-07-31 |
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This digital document is an article from Humanitas, published by National Humanities Institute on September 22, 2002. The length of the article is 1098 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Concerned with everything in the universe.(Book Review)
Author: Robert M. Woods
Publication:
Humanitas (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 2002
Publisher: National Humanities Institute
Volume: 15
Issue: 2
Page: 98(4)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, published by Institute on Religion and Public Life on November 1, 2000. The length of the article is 1489 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: FROM DAWN TO DECADENCE: 500 YEARS OF WESTERN CULTURAL LIFE (1500 TO THE PRESENT).(Review) (book review)
Author: John J. Reilly
Publication:
First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life (Refereed)
Date: November 1, 2000
Publisher: Institute on Religion and Public Life
Page: 43
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This best-selling atlas contains over 900 images and illustrations to help you learn and review the microstructure of human tissues. The book starts with a section on general cell structure and replication. Basic tissue types are covered in the following section, and the third section presents the microstructures of each of the major body systems. The highest -quality color light micrographs and electron micrograph images are accompanied by concise text and captions which explain the appearance, function, and clinical significance of each image. The accompanying website lets you view all the images from the atlas with a "virtual microscope", allowing you to view the image at a variety of pre-set magnifications.
Customer Reviews:
Wheater's Histology.......2007-01-21
Basic histology isn't the most thrilling of topics, but this book makes it a little less painful. Excellent quality images and easy-to-digest commentary make this text a good supplement to any histology or physiology course.
excellent atlas.......2006-11-10
If you're taking a histo course, this is a fabulous atlas. Everyone at my school buys it, it has clearly labelled photographs of slides as well as very neat diagrams explaining how certain things work. Includes electron micrographs of cells for which EM's are helpful. Very very good book, I highly recommend it, it helps alot.
A text and an atlas...good at neither.......2003-10-24
This text tries to be both a text and an atlas in one and is unfortunately good at neither one. The text is very very basic and lacking in detail. The sections are poorly stained, out of focus and do not clearly demonstrate the structures. The pictures are small and of poor quality. Considering the price, I would recommend spending the extra 30-40 bucks and buy Gartner and Hiatt for an atlas and Junquera for a text instead of paying for this text.
!!!!.......2003-09-29
This book is good but not for beginers or medical students. it's complicated and packed with information, that might not be so important for students.
doesn't have any clinical correlations. i'd suggest the Basic histology book:text and atlas, rather than this one
Very useful for my histology class.......2003-06-12
I am a medical student and found this textbook very helpful because it was well-organized and full of important information. It's very thorough and complete with great pictures. Also, this book will always serve as a great reference in years to come. My study group and I also used the following which is also on amazon:
Histology Study Guide: Key Review Questions and Answers by Patrick Leonardi (isbn: 0971999686) The questions in the second book were of similar type to the tests in our medical histology class. In fact, we were recommended the second book from our friends at another med school and they found it quite helpful. It goes to show they were right, we all got A's and B's by using these two books.
Average customer rating:
- Reuniting Economy and Ecology in Sustainable Development
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Reuniting Economy And Ecology In Sustainable Development (Sustainable Community Development Series)
Russ Beaton
Manufacturer: CRC
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Principles of Sustainable Development
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Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development
ASIN: 1574441892 |
Book Description
Reuniting Economy and Ecology in Sustainable Development is part of a series on the various aspects of sustainable development, where "community" focuses on the primacy and quality of relationships among people sharing a particular place and between people and their environment. "Development" means personal and social transformation to a higher level of consciousness and a greater responsibility to be one anothers keepers, and "sustainability" is the act whereby one generation saves options by passing them to the next generation, which saves options by passing them onto the next and so on. The vision put forth in this book is one of melding ecology and economy into a unifying concept of social-environmental sustainability. The author suggests that dividing ecology and economy conceptually will destroy society as we know it. Our task as adults is to repair the environment for the children who must inherit it. The link between economics and ecology and the immense potential of that connection to influence the process of change within communities is the focus of this book. The authors theorize that in a healthy, future-oriented community there is a dominant role for sustainability. Each of these four concepts - economics, ecology, community and sustainability - are intimidating on their own. There has been volumes written on each topic separately but very little written on how they are connected in relation to the environment. Reuniting Economy and Ecology makes those connections and provides a base for finding solutions to achieving sustainable communities.
Customer Reviews:
Reuniting Economy and Ecology in Sustainable Development.......1999-11-30
This is a book that belongs in every thinking-person's library. Clear and elegant writing in addition to the critical topic makes this a book to give all your friends!
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