Barzun, Jacques, 1907-

Author, historian, editor, university administrator, and a member of the faculty of Columbia University since 1927. C.U.: A.B. (1927) & Ph.D. (1932).

Author, historian, editor, university administrator, and a member of the faculty of Columbia University since 1927. C.U.: A.B. (1927) & Ph. D. (1932).

Born in France on November 30, 1907, critic-historian Jacques Barzun came to the United States in 1920 and received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University. He taught at Columbia until his retirement in 1975, having also for a decade been Dean of Faculties and Provost. From 1975 to 1993 he was Literary Adviser to Charles Scribner's Sons. Among his forty books are biographical-critical studies of William James and Hector Berlioz, several volumes of literary and cultural criticism, translations, and the 900-page summa and best-seller From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life: 1500 to the Present .

Jacques Barzun, professor and critic, and Wendell Hertig Taylor, a retired scientist, were life-long friends and enthusiastic readers, critics, and collectors of detective fiction. In the early 1970s, they began donating many of their books to the Rare Book Room of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In appreciation, the library renamed its mystery collection "The Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor Collection of Crime and Detection." Barzun and Taylor compiled and edited A Cataloque of Crime, a reference guide to detective stories. They sent typed drafts of the book, along with related materials, to the Rare Book Collection which transferred them to the Southern Historical Collection in 1983.

American historian and critic of French birth.

Author, educator.

BIOGHIST REQUIRED Jacques Barzun was born in a suburb of Paris in 1907 and died in San Antonio, Texax in 2012.

The son of Henri Martin Barzun, a writer and diplomat, and Anna-Rose Barzun, Barzun grew up in the a family milieu which he described as "nursery of living culture". He met many artists and writers of the modernist era, including Marcel Duchamp, Ezra Pound and Jean Cocteau.

As an undergraduate, Barzun was the Columbia University Spectator’s drama critic and editor of Varsity, the literary magazine>. He way also president of the Philolexian Society and class valedictorian.

He taught his first class at Columbia, Contemporary Civilization, after graduating from the college. He later served as a history professor and was well known for his humanities courses, teaching for almost 50 years.

In the 1930s, Barzun taught the first Colloquium on Important Books class, the precursor to Literature Humanities, with Lionel Trilling, and developed the Core Curriculum’s humanities focus.

Barzun served as dean of graduate faculties in the 1950s and then provost from 1958 to 1967. Barzun obtained the rank of University Professor, the highest rank in the University, in 1967.

Barzun was an outspoken critic of American universities and objected to the politicization of the academy. He strongly condemned both student protesters and faculty during the 1968 student riots.

Barzun wrote ober 30 books. Among the notable titles are Teacher in America (1945) and From dawn to decadence : 500 years of cultural triumph and defeat, 1500 to the present (2000).

After retiring from the University in 1975, he remained an advocate for Columbia and the Core Curriculum.

A devoted Dodgers fan who knew the team when it still played at Ebbets Field, Barzun once remarked, “Whoever wants to know the heart and soul of America had better learn baseball.” That quote is now inscribed on the walls of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

He was awarded the Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, and was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor, France’s highest award. He became a U.S. citizen in 1933.

In October 2007, a month before his 100th birthday, Barzun was presented with the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates. At the event, Professor Emeritus of History Henry Graff called Barzun “the Babe Ruth of humanistic study and teaching.”

Jacques Barzun, professor and critic, and Wendell Hertig Taylor, a retired scientist, were life long friends and enthusiastic readers, critics, and collectors of detective fiction. In the early 1970s, they began donating many of their books to the Rare Book Room of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In appreciation, the library renamed its mystery collection The Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor Collection of Crime and Detection.

Barzun and Taylor compiled and edited A Catalogue of Crime, a reference guide to detective stories. They sent typed drafts of the book, along with related materials, to the Rare Book Collection which transferred them to the Southern Historical Collection in 1983.