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  • The Closing of the American Mind

  • By: Allan Bloom
  • Narrated by: Christopher Hurt
  • Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (25 ratings)

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The Closing of the American Mind

By: Allan Bloom
Narrated by: Christopher Hurt
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Summary

In one of the most important books of our time, Allan Bloom, a professor of social thought at the University of Chicago and a noted translator of Plato and Rousseau, argues that the social and political crisis of 20th-century America is really an intellectual crisis. Bloom cites everything from the universities' lack of purpose to the students' lack of learning, from the jargon of liberation to the supplanting of reason by so-called creativity. Furthermore, he shows how American democracy has unwittingly played host to vulgarized Continental ideas of nihilism and despair, of relativism disguised as tolerance, while demonstrating that the collective mind of the American university is closed to the very principles of spiritual heritage that gave rise to the university in the first place.
(P)1992 by Blackstone Audiobooks; ©1987 by Alan Bloom
Politics & Government
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Critic reviews

"With clarity, gravity, and grace, Bloom makes a convincing case for the improbable proposition that reading old books about the permanent questions could help to reestablish reason and restore the soul." (Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard University)

What listeners say about The Closing of the American Mind

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Profile Image for Mr S Deeley

essential reading

Insightful, erudite and is obviously greatly influential on the thinkers of the early 21st century.

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Wonderful

I’m not one to buy hardcover, but this needs to be on the bookshelf to go back to again and again.

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Profile Image for Greg Gauthier

Allan Bloom is a prophet

I used to see this book as a diagnosis of the past, but if you want to understand the present political and social situation of the west, you'll read this book.

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3 people found this helpful