The History Book Club discussion

This week's assignment is:

September 21 – September 27 ~~ Part IV (From “The Great Illusion” to “Western Civ Has Got to Go”, The Great Illusion (683-712)

The moderator tries to stimulate/instigate discussion but please feel free to open up with any questions of your own or your own opinions. These threads are for all of you.

Additionally, it is never too late to pick up the Barzun book and participate. We welcome all of the membership to this discussion. We always keep the threads open of the previous spotlighted book even though it will be moved to an Archive spot until the completion of the next in line selection so there is still plenty of time to get caught up. In the case of this book, I plan to reread it myself.

This is a weekly non spoiler thread. When posting, please post in the appropriate weekly thread.


Bentley

What did readers think of the first paragraph on page 683 in the chapter titled "The Great Illusion"?

The Blow that hurled the modern world on its course of self-destruction was the Great War of 1914-18. It was called great on account of its size rather than for any notable merit. When its sequel broke out in 1940, the earlier conflict was renamed First World War in deference to the second. This was an error, since the European wars of the 18C were also world wars, promiscuously fought in India and North America and on the five seas. But these, not being wars of peoples, did not threaten civilization or close an era."

I wondered how folks would interpret the above. Obviously Barzun feels that World War I and World War II were the catalysts that started our downward spiral. It appears that he thinks calling the First and Second World Wars by their names and numbers was a misnomer. I am trying to ascertain what wars in India and North America Barzun is referring to if not to the American Revolution, etc., War of 1812 etc. Does anybody have any ideas? The last sentence seems to imply that Barzun saw both of these wars as a threat to civilization (as we know it) and that these wars changed something about ourselves. Why do you think Barzun felt that these other wars or conflicts were not "wars of peoples"?

Note: I noticed that he was not referring to wars of the 19C but of the 18th!

Does anyone else find it odd; that Barzun simply assumes that you know exactly who he is talking about and just simply refers to everyone by their last name? He seems to be as familiar with everyone mentioned as if he were talking about Napoleon, FDR or even Shakespeare.

I am starting to feel that Barzun reminds me of the writer Robert Graves in terms of his philosophy of life and of our cultural history and what that means for the future.

As you probably recall Graves is known for the "I Claudius" books and his classical translations. He was an English poet, translator and novelist and was friends I guess with Wilfred Owen. I guess you could call him one of the War Poets too. He was still living in 1985 when he was among 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner; in fact out of the 16 he was the only one still living.

"The inscription on the slate stone was written by friend and fellow Great War poet Wilfred Owen. It reads: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G...

Poet's Corner:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poets’_C...
http://www.westminster-abbey.org/visi...

Commemoration:

http://net.lib.byu.edu/english/wwi/po...

On line - Robert Graves' poetry:
http://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pd...

Two Fusiliers

By Robert Graves

1895.7.24-1985.12.7

And have we done with War at last?
Well, we've been lucky devils both,
And there's no need of pledge or oath
To bind our lovely friendship fast,
By firmer stuff
Close bound enough.

By wire and wood and stake we're bound,
By Fricourt and by Festubert,
By whipping rain, by the sun's glare,
By all the misery and loud sound,
By a Spring day,
By Picard clay.

Show me the two so closely bound
As we, by the red bond of blood,
By friendship, blossoming from mud,
By Death: we faced him, and we found
Beauty in Death,
In dead men breath.

Here are some of the works by Graves or translated by Graves: (by the way, he was very prolific - these are just a very few works which he was involved with)







Robert Graves:
http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/ind...

THIS IS A WONDERFUL RESOURCE - THE FIRST WORLD WAR POETRY DIGITAL ARCHIVE

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/educa...
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/educa...



The Twelve Caesars was translated by Robert Graves


























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I have been thinking about these connections that Barzun seems to have to Graves and possibly vice versa.

Barzun was born in 1907 and did not move to America until he was 12 (1919) so his young life was punctuated by the First World War. Maybe things were not so great in France after World War I and his father was afraid of what the future might hold; because Barzun was sent to school in the USA. It is interesting that he was widely exposed to Cubism as a youngster too.

This is a quote from wikipedia:

Barzun was born in Créteil, France, to Henri-Martin and Anna-Rose Barzun. He spent his childhood in Paris and Grenoble. His father was a member of the Abbaye de Créteil group of artists and writers and also worked in the French ministry of labor.[1:] The Paris house of his parents was frequented by many "modernist" artists of belle epoque France, e.g., the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the Cubist painters Albert Gleizes and Marcel Duchamp, the composer Edgard Varèse, and the writers Richard Aldington and Stefan Zweig.[2:]

While on a diplomatic mission to the U.S. during the First World War, Barzun's father so liked what he saw there that he decided that his son should have an American university education, a conclusion startlingly out of character for a French artist and intellectual of that time.

Thus Barzun was sent to the USA at the tender age of 12, first to attend a preparatory school, then Columbia University where he obtained a broad liberal education. His artistic family background naturally inclined him to the study of cultural history, then a new branch of history.

I really think that the First World War poets and Graves as well as the fallout of these wars left its mark on Barzun.

This is an interesting site on World War I. It has an interesting article on Graves and his views.

Here is an excerpt:

"Above all, throughout his sixty-five year career as a professional writer, Robert Graves addresses the essential problems of the twentieth century: how do we overcome a heritage of violence? How do individuals who have been touched by this violence rehabilitate themselves? How do societies build new, healthier structures on a fragile, unhealthy foundation?

Here is the complete article:

http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsand...

I am wondering if Barzun doesn't feel that out of World Wars I and II that society and culture as a whole did not develop a healthier and more stable foundation for our cultures to grow and that these wars have potentially pushed us into decadence.

The author probes Graves' writing and states the following:

Graves probes the central conundrum of the whole period: how does a culture allow itself to slip into yet another war after the horrible bloodletting of the First World War? Are there forces within European life that lead inevitably to instability and war? If so, what can be done to neutralize these forces?

In the final analysis, I do not think that what Graves observed were simply Europe's problems. I think Barzun having been born a European but transplanted here saw the effects of both.

http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsand...

http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsand...

I found this interesting...in this article is a photo of Barzun with his colleague Moses Hadas who frequently communicated with none other than Robert Graves.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/alumni/Mag...

Here is a good write-up regarding the 18C.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18th_cen...

18C - We had the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the First Anglo-Maratha War. Battle of Panapat, the Seven Years War, the French and Indian Wars, the Carnatic Wars, Battle of Plassey, Siege of St. Augustine, Battle of Karnal, War of Jenkins Ear, Anglo-Spanish War: tried to isolate the wars that had an effect on North America, the high seas and India.