Jacques Barzun: "'a responsibility of scholars' to write accessibly"

http://www.newcriterion.com/posts.cfm/Jacques-Barzun--1907-2012-6941

Jacques Barzun, 1907–2012

by Brian P. Kelly

Posted: Oct 26, 2012 04:27 PM "Barzun was an expert in too many fields to name, publishing prolifically across topics ranging from baseball to medicine to art. In doing so, he was ardent in his populism, saying that it was “a responsibility of scholars” to write accessibly. He began work on his magnum opus when he was eighty-four. This tome, which surveyed 500 years of Western culture and argued that Western civilization was had started to decline, would become From Dawn to Decadence and would only be published when Barzun was ninety-two."