The Closing of the American Mind

Perhaps this book deserves five stars -- it did, after all, shake me up a bit, the way the best books do. Bloom is rightly concerned with a problem I see in my own classrooms: the assumption that, since all views are to be tolerated in our modern liberal democracy, all views are equally valuable; fu......more

This is the best argument for conservatism I've ever read. To be fair, it's also the only one I've ever read, outside of the occasional David Brooks column. And let's be honest: Bloom is about as elitist and conservative as you can get. But he makes the position seem very enticing with his brilliant......more

Autorul spune lucruri de bun simț, care merită să fie discutate. Tonul arțăgos îl face antipatic. Diatriba lui Allan Bloom a iscat o adevărată „furtună” în mediul academic american. Cartea s-a publicat în 1987, dar polemica a continuat cu înverșunare mai bine de un deceniu. Ce a reproșat Bloom pedago......more

I was in eighth grade when the late Allan Bloom's 1987 seminal classic "The Closing of the American Mind" was published. I remembered it because my parents, like thousands of other parents across the country, bought it and put it on the bookshelf proudly. And there it sat, unread, for almost two dec......more

Education, Democracy, And Soul The late Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind" was an unexpected bestseller when it appeared in 1987. It is an outstanding work combining polemic against the diminution of American standards with serious thought about how we came to this impasse. Bloom's book......more