SOURCE: “A Turning Point for Moral Decay?” in Insight on the News, Vol. 16, No. 25, July 3, 2000, p. 48.

In the following review, Fields offers a positive assessment of From Dawn to Decadence.

When a book criticizing our current culture runs to more than 800 pages, with 798 footnotes, and would break bones if you dropped it on your foot, it's more than a little surprising to find it on the New York Times best-seller list.

In fact, the popularity of such a book may be enough to refute its central thesis—that the last century began a steep and irrevocable decline in what we've honored as Western cultural life for the past 500 years.

From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present, by Jacques Barzun, nevertheless touches a nerve in the culture wars that could just be one of those “tipping points” to turn things around. Mr. Barzun, 92 years old with a strong sense...