He made it through the 20th century with his body and brain intact, and that's no small achievement when you think about it. The past hundred years have been mighty tough on both of these homo sapienal ingredients. Yet the word has about it a less pejorative meaning, a meaning which Barzun undertakes to explore in this tantalizing portrayal of ourselves and how we came to be. Sorry, I just had to do that. Easier to talk when there's not such a crowd around.
Many pages contain little quotes set off in bold at the margins.
It's a highly effective technique and offers the feasting reader the pleasure of a handy condiment with which to spice up the main course. Barzun writes not as a historical epoch specialist, but as a generalist. The entire undertaking is very much in the old style, wherein a hard working scholar and gifted thinker seeks to pull together the threads of human activity into a coherent structure that emphasizes a particular point of view. You will find his writing style to be unapologetically personal, his opinions and judgments forthrightly given, and the whole of his effort focused on presenting to the reader a contemplative review of things past and present. I have tried to write as I might speak, with only a touch of pedantry here and there to show that I understand modern tastes.