书名：From Dawn to Decadence从黎明到衰落：西方文化生活五百年，1500年至今

作者：Jacques Barzun雅克·巴尔赞
出版社名称：Harper Perennial
出版时间：2001
语种：英文
ISBN：9780060928834
商品尺寸：15.2 x 3.7 x 20.3 cm
包装：平装
页数：912 （以实物为准）
★30岁构思，50余年酝酿，85岁动笔，93岁出版，美国“国宝级历史学家”雅克·巴尔赞毕生心血巨著！

★一册在手，纵览五百年西方文化的宏伟画卷；
★被评论界誉为已经濒临灭绝“真正好看又伟大的历史杰作”；
★赞誉如潮，荣获美国国家图书奖2000年度非虚构图书，著名历史学家余英时推荐的西方文化史著作；
★《时代》《纽约时报》《金融时报》《泰晤士报》《卫报》等媒体一致推荐，《纽约时报书评》惊叹：史学大师的“绝世之作”；
★超级畅销，亚马逊、邦诺书店五星推荐，纽约时报畅销书排行榜连续14周名列前茅，诚品书店“年度选书”。

早在20世纪30年代，年轻的雅克·巴尔赞就萌生了撰写一部西方文化史的念头，但被一位长者劝阻了。那位长者认为，这位年轻人掌握的知识还不足以写出一些有创意的东西，建议他把写作计划推迟到80岁之后开始。
巴尔赞听从并且履行了那位长者的意见，在自己85岁的时候，才开始文化史写作。此时的巴尔赞早已是史学界的一代宗师了。
几年之后，也就是20世纪结束的那一年，巴尔赞的文化史巨著From Dawn to Decadence《从黎明到衰落：西方文化生活五百年，1500年至今》一书出版。
这一年，他93岁。
本书中，巴尔赞考察了从文艺复兴到20世纪末500年间西方文明的方方面面，包括政治制度、社会思潮、宗教、哲学、文学、音乐、美术、科技发明、民俗及社会生活等。他以四场“真正的革命”为标志来对这五百年进行划分：宗教革命、君主制革命、自由革命和社会革命，并以此为主轴，详述这些变革在思想与物质层面所带来的冲击，这些冲击又如何交互作用塑造出今日我们所见的世界。

Review
“From Dawn to Decadence, in short, is peerless.”  —New York Times Book Review
“A stunning five-century study of civilization’s cultural retreat.”  —William Safire, New York Times
“Barzun writes with unfailing, stylish lucidity and enlivens his vast tale with ingenious devices.”  —The New Yorker
“Likely—I am tempted to say certain—to become a classic.” —William H. McNeill,Los Angeles Times
“[Barzun] restores color to faded memories of history and paints in the mural here bits were missing.”  —Sebastian Mallaby, Washington Post Book World
“[From Dawn to Decadence] is arguably the best thinking man’s bedside book ever written.” —Peter Green,Times Literary Supplement
带你回到过去，细说西方文明如何在五百年中渐渐开花结果，带来我们如今所见的世界;又如何盛极而衰，面临再生的瓶颈……

30岁构思，50余年酝酿，85岁动笔，93岁出版，美国“国宝级历史学家”雅克·巴尔赞（Jacques Barzun，1907~2012）毕生心血巨著！将500年的西方文化编织成一部优美流畅、气势恢宏的史诗巨制、20世纪伟大的文化论著；一册在手，纵览五百年西方文化的宏伟画卷!《纽约时报书评》惊叹：史学大师的绝世之作！荣获美国国家图书奖，被评论界赞誉为“20世纪的文化圣经”！著名学者余英时笔推荐的西方文化史，专门撰文盛赞：这不是一本普通的史书，而是一位博雅老人一生读书和反思的结晶……
民主政治、个人自由、女权运动、性解放、工业化社会、原子弹、数字时代……西方文明带来的美德与罪恶，几乎已经完全渗透全球每个人的生活，你可知道这一切从何开始？巴尔赞考察了从文艺复兴到20世纪末500年间西方文明的方方面面，包括政治制度、社会思潮、宗教、哲学、文学、音乐、美术、科技发明、民俗及社会生活等。他以四场“真正的革命”为标志来对这五百年进行划分：宗教革命、君主制革命、自由革命和社会革命，并以此为主轴，详述这些变革在思想与物质层面所带来的冲击，这些冲击又如何交互作用塑造出今日我们所见的世界。
在他流畅的文笔之下，五百年的历史故事也能像《红楼梦》一样，出场人物个个栩栩如生，“剧情”高潮迭起，无处不精彩!五百年来多不胜数的种种事件人物，逐渐融合成一幅属于西方文明的立体图像。阅读本书，注定是一段非比寻常的西方文化之旅。
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 Renaisance 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.
雅克·巴尔赞（1907~2012），美国学者、教师、编辑和批评家，他在众多领域都颇有地位。七十年来，他的三十余部著作可谓包罗万象，包括音乐、思想史、当代艺术、科学评论，甚至还有侦探小说的导读。巴尔赞1927年至1975年在哥伦比亚学院任教，历任塞思·洛历史学教授、教务长和院长。他也是英国皇家艺术学会会员，并且曾两度担任美国艺术暨文学学会主席。他的代表作包括《达尔文、马克思、瓦格纳》《柏辽兹与浪漫世纪》《美国教师》《智性之家》《临行赠言》等。

Born in France in 1907, Jacques Barzuncame to the United States in 1920.After graduating from Columbia College, he joined the faculty of the university, becoming Seth Low Professor of History and, for a decade, Dean of Faculties and Provost.The author of some thirty books, including the New York Timesbestseller From Dawn to Decadence, he received the Gold Medal for Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he was twice president. He lives in San Antonio, Texas.
During the wanting of this book I was frequently asked by fiends and colleagues how long its preparation had taken. I could only answer: that my studies of separate periods and figures, which began in the late 1920s, disclosed unexpected vistas and led to confusions at variance with a number of accepted judgments. After further study and a review of what I had published, it seemed possible to shape my findings into continuous talc. In it, as will appear, figures worth knowing emerge from obscurity and new features appear in others. Familiar ideas arc reassessed, particularly the notions in vogue today as to where in the past our present merits and troubles come from.

I do not expect the reader to be steadily grateful Nobody likes to hear a rooted opinion challenged, and even less to see good reasons offered for a principle or policy once in force and now universal] condemned—for example, the divine right of kings or religious persecution. Our age is so tolerant, so broad-minded and disinclined to violence in its ideologies, that to find a case made out for the temper of the 16th or 17th century is bound to affront the righteous. Yet without exposure to this annoyance, one understands of our modern thoughts and virtues are incomplete.
Not that I am in favor of royal masters or persecution or any other evil supposedly outgrown. I cite these examples as a hint that I have not consulted current prejudices. My own are enough to keep me busy as I aim at the historian’s detachment and sympathy. For if, as Ranke said, every period stands justified in the sight of God, it deserves at least sympathy in the sight of Man.
Claiming detachment need not raise such of ob reactivity. It is waste of breath to point out that every observer is in some we biased. It does not follow that bias cannot be guarded against, that all biases distort equally, or that controlled bias remains as bad as propaganda. In dealing with the arts, for example, it is being “octave” to detect one’s blind spots—stop one in detachment. The second is to refrain from downgrading what one does not respond to. One has then the duty to report the informed judgment of others.