The Western Civilization requirement has been dropped from every college in America (except maybe Hillsdale and St. Johns.) Barzun wrote the book at the age of 93 so people could learn the history of their own culture. He has written lots of other stuff, like "The House of Intellect" back in 1959. I didn't realize that the curriculum in universities was in collapse even back then until I read his book.
Victor Hanson has a website that you might want to look at. He writes articles for several publications like National Review and posts them there. He is now a fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford, and I think he has stopped teaching so he can devote his time to writing.
My favorite non-fiction C.S. Lewis book is "The Discarded Image"
My goal is to read everything he has written. I am working on it.
Enjoy your reading.
"The Western Civilization requirement has been dropped from every college in America (except maybe Hillsdale and St. Johns.)"
The little Christian liberal arts college I graduated from 20 years ago had a rigid 4 semester sequence that integrated political, art, architectural, literary, musical, etc... history -- in short Western civilization in its broadest consideration. A major portion of our grades depended on our abilities in exams to write lengthy essays synthesizing and integrating all of these things on a couple of topics (which one always hoped would be ones we remembered a lot about.)
At the time, I chafed a bit, wishing I could take specialized niche courses as did folks in other universities I had heard about. Now, I am extremely grateful for the disciplined overview that I received...
My wife and I find ourselves sharing much of this with our kids over the dinner table and pointing them towards this or that work, knowing that they won't be getting it at school.