Jacques Barzan's From Dawn to Decadence

[bekah]

At 11:24 PM -0500 7/29/06, rich wrote:
>Hi all--
>
>leafing thru this rather unique look at western culture. a nice 
>summary of end of 19th century culture. barzan is rather witty and a 
>joy to read.
>
>rich

I read that a couple years ago.  Great book.  I agree that Barzon is 
enjoyable.   Do you realize that the man was 93 years old when this 
book was published??   He's 98 now.

What makes this book really good is that Barzun's been studying 
western civilization for his entire adult life.  This is the 
culmination of that effort.  He had to work with an enormous amount 
of material  (1500 - 2000 AD)  and it's all interconnected but 
beautifully organized.   Not exactly a happy ending, though.   :-( 
(g)

Bekah