Professor Jacques Barzun died yesterday at his home in San Antonio at the age of 104. He was a scholar, critic and university administrator who was intensely involved in American intellectual life for more than half a century. For many years he was associated with Columbia University, but after his retirement moved to Texas, which he found stimulating and liberating because of the broad vistas and great overarching sky, all quite different from what one experiences in New York. Barzun was born in France, but moved to the USA as a student in the 1920s. He was a prolific author, with a clear expository style. He was no stranger to polemics, whether inside the Academy or on topics in the public sphere, and, when so when moved, wrote prose that could punch pretty hard. His last major work, a 900 page study of western civilization, was written in his 90s, partly to relieve persistent insomnia and partly to demonstrate that cognitive decline was not a necessary ingredient of aging. He had a well-stocked mind, was firm in his opinions but fair in dispute. He was a good teacher, who said what he meant and meant what he said, and he was not given over to any fad or fashionable ‘ism’. Very few of his like are to be found.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/arts/jacques-barzun-historian-and-scholar-dies-at-104.html?hpw&_r=0
