Books, Arts & Manners: A Wanderer in No Man’s Land

The Culture We Deserve, by Jacques Barzun, edited by Arthur Krystal (Wesleyan University Press, 185 pp., $19.95)

There are only a few such monuments in American academic and intellectual life as Jacques Barzun. In terms of the history of Columbia University alone he spans the time from the challenging days of President Nicholas Murray Butler to Columbia’s undistinguished and inert present. Most men’s minds are shaped by the intellectual influences of their youth, and for Barzun the primary influence was the American philosopher William James. Intellectual style is a more complicated matter, but surely for Barzun the determinative influence was his French birth and boyhood. He has brought a French clarity of style and thought to American letters, together with a felicity of phrase altogether unacademic. Above all, Barzun has patterned himself on the French model of engaged intellectuality and has devoted his life to bringing his great gifts to bear on the cultural and moral problems of his time. This collection is a fair index of the energy and brilliance of his mind, and of the inclusive range of his concerns.

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Stephen J. Tonsor

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The Culture We Deserve, by Jacques Barzun, edited by Arthur Krystal (Wesleyan University Press, 185 pp., $19.95)

There are only a few such monuments in American academic and intellectual life as Jacques Barzun. In terms of the history of Columbia University alone he spans the time from the challenging days of President Nicholas Murray Butler to Columbia’s undistinguished and inert present. Most men’s minds are shaped by the intellectual influences of their youth, and for Barzun the primary influence was the American philosopher William James. Intellectual style is a more complicated matter, but surely for Barzun the determinative influence was his French birth and boyhood. He has brought a French clarity of style and thought to American letters, together with a felicity of phrase altogether unacademic. Above all, Barzun has patterned himself on the French model of engaged intellectuality and has devoted his life to bringing his great gifts to bear on the cultural and moral problems of his time. This collection is a fair index of the energy and brilliance of his mind, and of the inclusive range of his concerns.