Barzun, Jacques, << BAHR zuhn, zhahk >> (1907-2012), was an American educator and historian who wrote widely on culture, education, and the history of ideas. From 1927 to 1975, he taught at Columbia University. He became noted for his imaginative teaching and polished lectures. He also served as provost and dean of faculties at Columbia from 1958 to 1967.
Barzun’s Teacher in America (1945) won him an international following. He examined modern threats to the life of the mind in The House of Intellect (1959) and dealt with higher education in The American University (1968). In From Dawn to Decadence (2000), Barzun traced the history of Western cultural life from 1500 to 2000. His Berlioz and the Romantic Century (1950) analyzed the life, work, and influence of the French composer Hector Berlioz. Like his Darwin, Marx, Wagner (1941), the Berlioz book is distinguished for its artistic scholarship.
Jacques Martin Barzun was born on Nov. 30, 1907, in Creteil, France, near Paris. He came to the United States in 1920 and earned a Ph.D. degree from Columbia University in 1932. He became a U.S. citizen in 1933. Barzun died on Oct. 25, 2012, at the age of 104.
