I'm reading From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life by Jacques Barzun (published in 2000). Ostensibly it's an historical survey of Western culture from 1500 to the present by a master historian. And for that reason alone it's supposed to be an excellent read. Reviews of the book at Amazon are quite glowing.
But I'm particularly interested in Barzun's ideas on Decadence. Barzun starts the book with the thesis that Western culture is currently in decline (in a state of Decadence), and he traces the cultural threads that got us into this dead end starting all the way back from the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation.
From Barzun's introduction: "Borrowing widely from other lands, thriving on dissent and originality, the West has been the mongrel civilization par excellence. But in spite of patchwork and conflict it has pursued characteristic purposes--that is its unity--and now these purposes, carried out to their utmost possibility, are bringing about its demise. This ending is shown by the deadlocks of our time: for and against nationalism, for and against individualism, for and against the high arts, for and against strict morals and religious belief." (p. xix)
Usually studies on Decadence focus on the fall of the Roman empire, Baudelaire's Paris, Oscar Wilde's London, and Berlin between the two world wars. So it's interesting to see someone apply the concept to modern Western society and take a "holistic" view by tracing the development of modern Decadence across the span of centuries.
It's an 800-page book, and so far I'm only 150 pages in. So I'll be at it for a while to come. But it's a great review of Western culture in general. Also, I read Decadence: A Very Short Introduction by David Weir (pub. 2018) as preparation, so I'm up on the traditional ideas about Decadence, and I'm invested in seeing where Barzun goes with it.
It has my interest piqued enough that I don't mind putting some time into the book and enjoying the ride.