Jacques Barzun facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Jacques Barzun
Painting of Barzun titled With Light from a New Dawn, 1947
Born	Jacques Martin Barzun (1907-11-30)November 30, 1907 Créteil, France
Died	October 25, 2012(2012-10-25) (aged 104) San Antonio, Texas, U.S.
Alma mater	Columbia University (BA, MA, PhD)
Occupation	Historian
Relatives	Lucy Barzun Donnelly (granddaughter) Matthew Barzun (grandson)

Jacques Martin Barzun (born November 30, 1907 – died October 25, 2012) was a French-American historian. He was famous for studying the history of ideas and cultural history. This means he looked at how ideas and cultures changed over time.

Barzun wrote about many different topics. These included baseball, mystery novels, and classical music. He was also a thinker about education. His book Teacher in America (1945) greatly influenced how teachers were trained in the United States.

He was a history professor at Columbia College for many years. He wrote over forty books. He received the American Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was also named a knight of the French Legion of Honor. His huge history book, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present (2000), is considered his greatest work. He published it when he was 93 years old!

Jacques Barzun's Early Life
Jacques Barzun's Career and Writings
- Interests in Popular Culture
Awards and Recognition
Works
See also

Jacques Barzun's Early Life

Jacques Martin Barzun was born in Créteil, France. His parents were Henri-Martin Barzun and Anna-Rose Barzun. He grew up in Paris and Grenoble. His father was part of a group of artists and writers called the Abbaye de Créteil. He also worked for the French government.

Their home in Paris was a meeting place for many modern artists and writers. Famous people like the poet Guillaume Apollinaire and the painter Marcel Duchamp visited often.

Moving to America

During World War I (1914–1918), Barzun's father went to the United States for a diplomatic mission. He liked the country so much that he decided Jacques should go to an American university.

So, at age twelve, Jacques moved to America. He graduated from Harrisburg Technical High School in 1924. Then he went to Columbia University. There, he got a liberal arts education, which means he studied a wide range of subjects.

College Years and Teaching

At Columbia College, Barzun was very active. He wrote about drama for the student newspaper. He was also a prize-winning president of the Philolexian Society, a debate club. He was the top student of his class in 1927.

He earned his Master's degree in 1928 and his Ph.D. in 1932 from Columbia. He taught history there from 1928 to 1955. He became a well-known professor and helped create the study of cultural history. For many years, he and literary critic Lionel Trilling taught Columbia's famous Great Books course.

He became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1954. He also joined the American Philosophical Society in 1984.

Later Career and Family Life

From 1955 to 1968, Barzun held important leadership roles at Columbia. He was Dean of the Graduate School and Provost. He also spent time at Churchill College, Cambridge in England. From 1968 until he retired in 1975, he was a University Professor at Columbia.

He was also involved in book clubs and worked as a literary adviser for a publishing company.

In 1936, Barzun married Mariana Lowell, a violinist. They had three children: James, Roger, and Isabel. Mariana passed away in 1979. In 1980, Barzun married Marguerite Lee Davenport. From 1996, they lived in her hometown of San Antonio, Texas.

His granddaughter, Lucy Barzun Donnelly, produced the award-winning HBO film Grey Gardens. His grandson, Matthew Barzun, was the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden and later to the United Kingdom.

On May 14, 2012, Barzun attended a symphony concert held in his honor. Music by his favorite composer, Hector Berlioz, was played. He gave a short speech to the audience.

Barzun passed away at his home in San Antonio, Texas, on October 25, 2012. He was 104 years old. The New York Times called him a "distinguished historian, essayist, cultural gadfly and educator." They said he helped create the modern study of cultural history. The Daily Telegraph noted his amazing knowledge of Western music, art, literature, and philosophy.

Jacques Barzun's Career and Writings

Over seventy years, Barzun wrote and edited more than forty books. His books covered many different topics. These included science and medicine, psychiatry, art, and classical music. He was a top expert on the composer Hector Berlioz.

Some of his books, like Teacher in America and The House of Intellect, were very popular. They influenced discussions about culture and education far beyond universities. Barzun was very interested in how to write and do research. He helped finish and edit the first edition of Follett's Modern American Usage (1966).

Barzun also wrote books about writing style, like Simple and Direct (1975). He wrote about editing and publishing in On Writing, Editing, and Publishing (1971). His book The Modern Researcher is about research methods in history and other humanities. It has been printed many times.

Interests in Popular Culture

Barzun enjoyed popular culture too. His interests included detective fiction and baseball. He famously said, "Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball." This quote is even on a plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

He edited a collection of detective stories called The Delights of Detection (1961). In 1971, he co-wrote A Catalogue of Crime, a guide to mystery literature. For this, he received a special Edgar Award. Barzun also supported supernatural fiction and wrote an introduction for The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural.

From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun

After retiring from Columbia, Jacques Barzun continued to write. When he was 84, he started writing his most important book. He spent most of the 1990s on it. This book, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present, was over 800 pages long. It showed his huge knowledge and sharp mind, even at an old age.

Historians and reviewers praised From Dawn to Decadence. It became a New York Times bestseller. This book made him famous around the world. In the New York Times, historian William Everdell called it "a great achievement."

The book used special ways to help readers follow its many ideas. Most pages had a small box on the side with a clever quote. In 2007, Barzun said, "Old age is like learning a new profession. And not one of your own choosing." Even in October 2011, just before his 104th birthday, he wrote a book review for the Wall Street Journal.

Barzun believed that history should be told like a story. He thought it should not use too much academic language or be too distant. He wrote that "history cannot be a science; it is the very opposite." He felt its interest came from looking at specific details.

Awards and Recognition

Jacques Barzun received many honors for his work.

In 1968, he received the St. Louis Literary Award.
He was named a Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honour in France.
In 2003, President George W. Bush gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is one of the highest civilian awards in the U.S.
In 1993, his book "An Essay on French Verse" won the Poetry Society of America's Melville Cane Poetry Award.
On October 18, 2007, he received the 59th Great Teacher Award from Columbia University graduates.
On March 2, 2011, President Barack Obama awarded him the 2010 National Humanities Medal.
On April 16, 2011, he received the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement.

The American Philosophical Society gives out the Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History every year. This award honors a great work of cultural history. Barzun also received the Gold Medal for Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was president of this Academy twice.

Works

1927 Samplings and Chronicles: Being the Continuation of the Philolexian Society History, with Literary Selections from 1912 to 1927 (editor). Philolexian Society.
1932 The French Race: Theories of Its Origins and Their Social and Political Implications. P.S. King & Son.
1937 Race: A Study in Modern Superstition (Revised, 1965 Race: A Study in Superstition). Methuen & Co. Ltd.
1939 Of Human Freedom. Revised edition, Greenwood Press Reprint, 1977: ISBN: 0-8371-9321-4.
1941 Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage. ISBN: 978-1-4067-6178-8.
1943 Romanticism and the Modern Ego. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1943.
1945 Teacher in America. Reprint Liberty Fund, 1981. ISBN: 0-913966-79-7.
1950 Berlioz and the Romantic Century. Boston: Little, Brown and Company / An Atlantic Monthly Press Book, 1950 [2 vols.].
1951 Pleasures of Music: A Reader's Choice of Great Writing About Music and Musicians From Cellini to Bernard Shaw Viking Press.
1954 God's Country and Mine: A Declaration of Love, Spiced with a Few Harsh Words. Reprint Greenwood Press, 1973: ISBN: 0-8371-6860-0.
1956 Music in American Life. Indiana University Press.
1956 The Energies of Art: Studies of Authors, Classic and Modern. Greenwood, ISBN: 0-8371-6856-2.
1959 The House of Intellect. Reprint Harper Perennial, 2002: ISBN: 978-0-06-010230-2.
1960 Lincoln the Literary Genius (first published in The Saturday Evening Post, February 14, 1959)
1961 The Delights of Detection. Criterion Books.
1961 Classic, Romantic, and Modern. Reprint University of Chicago Press, 1975: ISBN: 0-226-03852-1.
1964 Science: The Glorious Entertainment. HarperCollins. ISBN: 0-06-010240-3.
1967 What Man Has Built (introductory booklet to the Great Ages of Man book series). Time Inc.
1968 The American University: How It Runs, Where It Is Going. Reprint University of Chicago Press, 1993: ISBN: 0-226-03845-9.
1969 Berlioz and the Romantic Century (3d ed.).
1971 On Writing, Editing, and Publishing. University of Chicago Press.
1971 A Catalogue of Crime: Being a Reader's Guide to the Literature of Mystery, Detection, and Related Genres (with Wendell Hertig Taylor). Revised edition, Harper & Row, 1989: ISBN: 0-06-015796-8.
1974 Clio and the Doctors. Reprinted University of Chicago Press, 1993: ISBN: 0-226-03851-3.
1974 The Use and Abuse of Art (A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts) . Princeton University Press. ISBN: 0-691-01804-9.
1975 Simple and Direct: A Rhetoric for Writers. 4th ed, Harper Perennial, 2001: ISBN: 0-06-093723-8.
1976 The Bibliophile of the Future: His Complaints about the Twentieth Century (Maury A. Bromsen lecture in humanistic bibliography). Boston Public Library. ISBN: 0-89073-048-2.
1980 Three Talks at Northern Kentucky University. Northern Kentucky University, Dept. of Literature and Language.
1982 Lincoln's Philosophic Vision. Artichokes Creative Studios.
1982 Critical Questions: On Music and Letters, Culture and Biography, 1940–1980 (edited by Bea Friedland). University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 0-226-03864-5.
1982 Berlioz and His Century: An Introduction to the Age of Romanticism (Abridgment of Berlioz and the Romantic Century). University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 0-226-03861-0.
1983 A Stroll with William James. Reprint University of Chicago Press, 2002: ISBN: 978-0-226-03869-8.
1986 A Word or Two Before You Go: Brief Essays on Language. Wesleyan University.
1989 The Culture We Deserve: A Critique of Disenlightenment. Wesleyan University. ISBN: 0-8195-6237-8.
1991 An Essay on French Verse: For Readers of English Poetry. New Directions Publishing. ISBN: 0-8112-1158-4.
1991 Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning. University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 0-226-03846-7.
2000 From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present. ISBN: 978-0-06-092883-4.
2001 Sidelights on Opera at Glimmerglass. Glimmerglass Opera
2002 A Jacques Barzun Reader. ISBN: 978-0-06-093542-9.
2002 What Is a School? and Trim the College! (What Is a School? An Institution in Limbo, Trim the College! A Utopia). Hudson Institute.
2003 The Modern Researcher (6th ed.) (with Henry F. Graff). Wadsworth Publishing. ISBN: 978-0-495-31870-5.
2004 Four More Sidelights on Opera at Glimmerglass: 2001–2004