Yet another death of a major historian and writer... Though given that he was nearly 105 years old, it can not be too much of a surprise
French Cultural Historian and critique who spend most of his academic life at Colombia. Perhaps one of the last old school classically educated modernist and elitists (as a child Apollinaire used to pop by to his parents and discuss his poetry. Yes, seriously) who was known for his opposition to what he termed "egalitarianism" in University life and for a somewhat cranky yet erudite and educated approach to the contemporary period. Wrote
From Dawn and Decadence in his 90s which somewhat perversely became a best-seller, a rather interesting cultural history of Europe over the past 400 years in many ways if incredibly rambling and featuring the most disorganized referencing system I have ever seen (Disclosure: I have not read all of it, but the last few chapters on the last 100 years are worth reading, even if fogeyish/quite mad).
More can read about him
here and
here
