Jacques Barzun was born in Créteil, a suburb of Paris, France, in 1907 and died in San Antonio, Texas, in 2012.

The son of Henri-Martin Barzun, a writer and diplomat, and Anna-Rose Barzun, Barzun grew up in the a family milieu which he described as "nursery of living culture." He met many artists and writers of the modernist era, including Marcel Duchamp, Ezra Pound and Jean Cocteau.

As an undergraduate, Barzun was the Columbia University Spectator's drama critic and editor of Varsity, the literary magazine. He way also president of the Philolexian Society and class valedictorian.

Barzun taught his first class at Columbia, Contemporary Civilization, after graduating from Columbia College. He earned a master's degree in 1928 and a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University in 1932. He was later appointed Seth Low Professor of History and was well known for his humanities courses, teaching for almost 50 years. In the 1930s, Barzun taught the first Colloquium on Important Books class, the precursor to Literature Humanities, with Lionel Trilling, and developed the Core Curriculum's humanities focus. Barzun served as Dean of Graduate Faculties in the 1950s and then Provost from 1958 to 1967. Barzun obtained the rank of University Professor, the highest rank in the University, in 1967. After retiring from Columbia University in 1975, he remained an advocate for Columbia and the Core Curriculum.

Barzun was an outspoken critic of American universities and objected to the politicization of the academy. He strongly condemned both student protesters and faculty during the 1968 student riots.

Barzun wrote over 30 books. Among the notable titles are Teacher in America (1945) and From dawn to decadence : 500 years of cultural triumph and defeat, 1500 to the present (2000).

A devoted Dodgers fan who knew the team when it still played at Ebbets Field, Barzun once remarked, "Whoever wants to know the heart and soul of America had better learn baseball.'" That quote is now inscribed on the walls of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Barzun was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush in 2003, and the National Humanities Medal by Barack Obama in 2010. He was also made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, France's highest award. He became a U.S. citizen in 1933.

In October 2007, a month before his 100th birthday, Barzun was presented with the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates. At the event, Professor Emeritus of History Henry Graff called Barzun 'the Babe Ruth of humanistic study and teaching.'

Jacques Barzun married first Lucretia Mueller, in 1931; they were divorced in 1936. Later that year, he married Mariana Lowell, a violinist from the prominent Lowell family of Boston. They had three children: James, Roger, and Isabel Barzun. Mariana died in 1979. In 1980 Barzun married Marguerite Lee Davenport, an American Studies professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.