Tag: American Politics

Topics

Books

Reply to Burnyeat

– "The Studies of Leo Strauss: An Exchange," New York Review of Books, 30 May 1985.
Excerpt: M.F. Burnyeat’s attempt to wake a sleeping America to the political threat posed to it by the late Leo Strauss is McCarthyite in the precise sense of the term. His calumny… More

The Crisis of American Democracy and Liberal Education

– The Crisis of American Democracy and Liberal Education: Collected Essays, 1986.
Excerpt: Therefore a truly political judgment is maintained so long as the issues are matters of life and death. Policy orientation helps keep the focus which we are too likely to lose. It… More

The Open Mind

– Interview with Allan Bloom, The Open Mind, PBS, 7 June 1987.
Watch The Closing of the American Mind on PBS. See more from The Open Mind.

The Closing of the American Mind

– The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students, with a foreword by Saul Bellow, Simon & Schuster, 1987.  Reprint, Simon & Schuster, 2012.
Excerpt: I used to think that young Americans began whatever education they were to get at the age of eighteen, that their early lives were spiritually empty and that they arrived at the… More

How Nietzsche Conquered America

– "How Nietzsche Conquered America," The Wilson Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 80-93.
Excerpt: Modern democracy was, of course, the target of Nietzsche’s criticism.A s he saw it, rationalisma nd its egalitarianismw ere the contrary of creativity; daily life was for him… More

An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited

– Sidney Hook, "An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited," review of The Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom, The American Scholar, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Winter 1989), pp.  123, 126-128, 130-132, 134-135.
Excerpt: This denial of the truth about the rampaging students of the sixties is reflected even in the most respectable of the critical reviews Bloom has received. Among the most… More

Confronting the Constitution

– Confronting the Constitution: The Challenge to Locke, Montesquieu, Jefferson, and the Federalists from Utilitarianism, Historicism, Marxism, Freudianism, Pragmatism, Exististentialism..., ed. Allan Bloom, American Enterprise Institute, 1990.

Giants and Dwarfs

– Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960-1990, Simon and Schuster, 1990.
Excerpt: And we may further suppose that Gulliver has certain hidden thoughts and intentions which are only to be revealed by closely cross-examining him. He indicates this himself at the… More

“The Closing of the American Mind,” Revisited

– S. J. D. Green, "The Closing of the American Mind, Revisited," The Antioch Review, Vol. 56, No. 1, Our Therapeutic State (Winter 1998), pp. 26-36.
Excerpt: Take heed of the subtitle: How Higher Edcation Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students. For that is what the book is really about. Moreover, in… More

The Historical Context of Allan Bloom

– "The Historical Context of Allan Bloom," panel discussion with James Ceaser, James Miller, John Tomasi and John McWhorter, hosted by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, C-SPAN, 3 October 2007.

Allan Bloom and America by Thomas West

– Thomas G. West, "Allan Bloom and America," Claremont Review of Books, 19 November 2007.
Excerpt: Nietzsche, one of Bloom’s authorities on the current malaise, rightly points out the debilitating effect of Great Books education in our world, in a passage I first read… More

Strange Bedfellows: Allan Bloom and John Dewey Against Liberal Education

– Patrick J. Deneen, "Strange Bedfellows: Allan Bloom and John Dewey Against Liberal Education, Rightly Understood," The Good Society, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2008), pp. 49-55.
Excerpt: The educational theories of Allan Bloom and John Dewey could not apparently be more at odds. Bloom argued on behalf of the aspiration of philosophy to apprehend the truth, even if… More

The Book That Drove Them Crazy

– Andrew Ferguson, "The Book That Drove Them Crazy: Allan Bloom's 'Closing of the American Mind' 25 Years Later," Weekly Standard, 9 April 2012.
Excerpt: Among much else, Bellow dramatizes the suddenness of the wealth and fame that rained down on Bloom in the late 1980s. The cause, as Bellow says, was the publication of a warlike… More

Re-Opening the American Mind

– Liel Liebovitz, "Re-Opening the American Mind," Tablet, 11 April 2012.
Excerpt: The bravado hid a far more serious vein. Those who accused him of elitism, Bloom argued, were getting it all wrong. He wasn’t a cranky conservative—a “grumpy guru,” as… More

Allan Bloom’s Guide to College

– Matt Feeney, "Allan Bloom’s Guide to College," New Yorker, 12 April 2012.
Excerpt: I don’t point this out to suggest Bloom was blind to these ironies. I do so  to note that he is a less reliable ally in the partisan fight against relativism  than many… More

Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind Twenty-Five Years Later

– "Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind Twenty-Five Years Later: The Continuing Failure of Higher Education?," panel discussion with Nathan Tarcov, Bill Kristol, Hillel Fradkin, Janet Dougherty, moderated by John Walters, hosted by the Hudson Institute, Washington, DC, 15 June 2012.
Twenty-five years ago, Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students offered a… More

The Reopening of the American Mind

– Jay Schalin, "The Reopening of the American Mind," The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, 4 July 2012.
The publication of Closing of the American Mind was followed by the 1989 appearance of Rush Limbaugh on the national airwaves and the Internet’s emergence in the early 1990s. Conservative… More

Conference on the 25th Anniversary of The Closing of the American Mind

– Conference on the 25th anniversary of Allan Bloom's bestseller The Closing of the American Mind, hosted by the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard University, 21 Sept. 2012. The first panel is on Students and is chaired by Arthur Melzer, with Kathryn Sensen, James Hankins, and Paul Cantor as speakers. The second panel is on the University and is chaired by R. Shep Melnick, with Nannerl Keohane, Rita Koganzon, and James Piereson. The third panel is chaired by William Kristol and features Margaret Soltan, Michael Davis and Nasser Behnegar as speakers.  
   

Full Bloom

– Algis Valiunas, Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2015.
Excerpt: Yet is one right to believe that Bloom represented political philosophy at its highest reach, and that he spoke for the best life possible? During the season of Bloom’s… More

Essays

Reply to Burnyeat

– "The Studies of Leo Strauss: An Exchange," New York Review of Books, 30 May 1985.
Excerpt: M.F. Burnyeat’s attempt to wake a sleeping America to the political threat posed to it by the late Leo Strauss is McCarthyite in the precise sense of the term. His calumny… More

The Crisis of American Democracy and Liberal Education

– The Crisis of American Democracy and Liberal Education: Collected Essays, 1986.
Excerpt: Therefore a truly political judgment is maintained so long as the issues are matters of life and death. Policy orientation helps keep the focus which we are too likely to lose. It… More

The Open Mind

– Interview with Allan Bloom, The Open Mind, PBS, 7 June 1987.
Watch The Closing of the American Mind on PBS. See more from The Open Mind.

The Closing of the American Mind

– The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students, with a foreword by Saul Bellow, Simon & Schuster, 1987.  Reprint, Simon & Schuster, 2012.
Excerpt: I used to think that young Americans began whatever education they were to get at the age of eighteen, that their early lives were spiritually empty and that they arrived at the… More

How Nietzsche Conquered America

– "How Nietzsche Conquered America," The Wilson Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 80-93.
Excerpt: Modern democracy was, of course, the target of Nietzsche’s criticism.A s he saw it, rationalisma nd its egalitarianismw ere the contrary of creativity; daily life was for him… More

An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited

– Sidney Hook, "An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited," review of The Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom, The American Scholar, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Winter 1989), pp.  123, 126-128, 130-132, 134-135.
Excerpt: This denial of the truth about the rampaging students of the sixties is reflected even in the most respectable of the critical reviews Bloom has received. Among the most… More

Confronting the Constitution

– Confronting the Constitution: The Challenge to Locke, Montesquieu, Jefferson, and the Federalists from Utilitarianism, Historicism, Marxism, Freudianism, Pragmatism, Exististentialism..., ed. Allan Bloom, American Enterprise Institute, 1990.

Giants and Dwarfs

– Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960-1990, Simon and Schuster, 1990.
Excerpt: And we may further suppose that Gulliver has certain hidden thoughts and intentions which are only to be revealed by closely cross-examining him. He indicates this himself at the… More

“The Closing of the American Mind,” Revisited

– S. J. D. Green, "The Closing of the American Mind, Revisited," The Antioch Review, Vol. 56, No. 1, Our Therapeutic State (Winter 1998), pp. 26-36.
Excerpt: Take heed of the subtitle: How Higher Edcation Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students. For that is what the book is really about. Moreover, in… More

The Historical Context of Allan Bloom

– "The Historical Context of Allan Bloom," panel discussion with James Ceaser, James Miller, John Tomasi and John McWhorter, hosted by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, C-SPAN, 3 October 2007.

Allan Bloom and America by Thomas West

– Thomas G. West, "Allan Bloom and America," Claremont Review of Books, 19 November 2007.
Excerpt: Nietzsche, one of Bloom’s authorities on the current malaise, rightly points out the debilitating effect of Great Books education in our world, in a passage I first read… More

Strange Bedfellows: Allan Bloom and John Dewey Against Liberal Education

– Patrick J. Deneen, "Strange Bedfellows: Allan Bloom and John Dewey Against Liberal Education, Rightly Understood," The Good Society, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2008), pp. 49-55.
Excerpt: The educational theories of Allan Bloom and John Dewey could not apparently be more at odds. Bloom argued on behalf of the aspiration of philosophy to apprehend the truth, even if… More

The Book That Drove Them Crazy

– Andrew Ferguson, "The Book That Drove Them Crazy: Allan Bloom's 'Closing of the American Mind' 25 Years Later," Weekly Standard, 9 April 2012.
Excerpt: Among much else, Bellow dramatizes the suddenness of the wealth and fame that rained down on Bloom in the late 1980s. The cause, as Bellow says, was the publication of a warlike… More

Re-Opening the American Mind

– Liel Liebovitz, "Re-Opening the American Mind," Tablet, 11 April 2012.
Excerpt: The bravado hid a far more serious vein. Those who accused him of elitism, Bloom argued, were getting it all wrong. He wasn’t a cranky conservative—a “grumpy guru,” as… More

Allan Bloom’s Guide to College

– Matt Feeney, "Allan Bloom’s Guide to College," New Yorker, 12 April 2012.
Excerpt: I don’t point this out to suggest Bloom was blind to these ironies. I do so  to note that he is a less reliable ally in the partisan fight against relativism  than many… More

Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind Twenty-Five Years Later

– "Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind Twenty-Five Years Later: The Continuing Failure of Higher Education?," panel discussion with Nathan Tarcov, Bill Kristol, Hillel Fradkin, Janet Dougherty, moderated by John Walters, hosted by the Hudson Institute, Washington, DC, 15 June 2012.
Twenty-five years ago, Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students offered a… More

The Reopening of the American Mind

– Jay Schalin, "The Reopening of the American Mind," The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, 4 July 2012.
The publication of Closing of the American Mind was followed by the 1989 appearance of Rush Limbaugh on the national airwaves and the Internet’s emergence in the early 1990s. Conservative… More

Conference on the 25th Anniversary of The Closing of the American Mind

– Conference on the 25th anniversary of Allan Bloom's bestseller The Closing of the American Mind, hosted by the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard University, 21 Sept. 2012. The first panel is on Students and is chaired by Arthur Melzer, with Kathryn Sensen, James Hankins, and Paul Cantor as speakers. The second panel is on the University and is chaired by R. Shep Melnick, with Nannerl Keohane, Rita Koganzon, and James Piereson. The third panel is chaired by William Kristol and features Margaret Soltan, Michael Davis and Nasser Behnegar as speakers.  
   

Full Bloom

– Algis Valiunas, Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2015.
Excerpt: Yet is one right to believe that Bloom represented political philosophy at its highest reach, and that he spoke for the best life possible? During the season of Bloom’s… More

Commentary

Reply to Burnyeat

– "The Studies of Leo Strauss: An Exchange," New York Review of Books, 30 May 1985.
Excerpt: M.F. Burnyeat’s attempt to wake a sleeping America to the political threat posed to it by the late Leo Strauss is McCarthyite in the precise sense of the term. His calumny… More

The Crisis of American Democracy and Liberal Education

– The Crisis of American Democracy and Liberal Education: Collected Essays, 1986.
Excerpt: Therefore a truly political judgment is maintained so long as the issues are matters of life and death. Policy orientation helps keep the focus which we are too likely to lose. It… More

The Open Mind

– Interview with Allan Bloom, The Open Mind, PBS, 7 June 1987.
Watch The Closing of the American Mind on PBS. See more from The Open Mind.

The Closing of the American Mind

– The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students, with a foreword by Saul Bellow, Simon & Schuster, 1987.  Reprint, Simon & Schuster, 2012.
Excerpt: I used to think that young Americans began whatever education they were to get at the age of eighteen, that their early lives were spiritually empty and that they arrived at the… More

How Nietzsche Conquered America

– "How Nietzsche Conquered America," The Wilson Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 80-93.
Excerpt: Modern democracy was, of course, the target of Nietzsche’s criticism.A s he saw it, rationalisma nd its egalitarianismw ere the contrary of creativity; daily life was for him… More

An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited

– Sidney Hook, "An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited," review of The Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom, The American Scholar, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Winter 1989), pp.  123, 126-128, 130-132, 134-135.
Excerpt: This denial of the truth about the rampaging students of the sixties is reflected even in the most respectable of the critical reviews Bloom has received. Among the most… More

Confronting the Constitution

– Confronting the Constitution: The Challenge to Locke, Montesquieu, Jefferson, and the Federalists from Utilitarianism, Historicism, Marxism, Freudianism, Pragmatism, Exististentialism..., ed. Allan Bloom, American Enterprise Institute, 1990.

Giants and Dwarfs

– Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960-1990, Simon and Schuster, 1990.
Excerpt: And we may further suppose that Gulliver has certain hidden thoughts and intentions which are only to be revealed by closely cross-examining him. He indicates this himself at the… More

“The Closing of the American Mind,” Revisited

– S. J. D. Green, "The Closing of the American Mind, Revisited," The Antioch Review, Vol. 56, No. 1, Our Therapeutic State (Winter 1998), pp. 26-36.
Excerpt: Take heed of the subtitle: How Higher Edcation Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students. For that is what the book is really about. Moreover, in… More

The Historical Context of Allan Bloom

– "The Historical Context of Allan Bloom," panel discussion with James Ceaser, James Miller, John Tomasi and John McWhorter, hosted by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, C-SPAN, 3 October 2007.

Allan Bloom and America by Thomas West

– Thomas G. West, "Allan Bloom and America," Claremont Review of Books, 19 November 2007.
Excerpt: Nietzsche, one of Bloom’s authorities on the current malaise, rightly points out the debilitating effect of Great Books education in our world, in a passage I first read… More

Strange Bedfellows: Allan Bloom and John Dewey Against Liberal Education

– Patrick J. Deneen, "Strange Bedfellows: Allan Bloom and John Dewey Against Liberal Education, Rightly Understood," The Good Society, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2008), pp. 49-55.
Excerpt: The educational theories of Allan Bloom and John Dewey could not apparently be more at odds. Bloom argued on behalf of the aspiration of philosophy to apprehend the truth, even if… More

The Book That Drove Them Crazy

– Andrew Ferguson, "The Book That Drove Them Crazy: Allan Bloom's 'Closing of the American Mind' 25 Years Later," Weekly Standard, 9 April 2012.
Excerpt: Among much else, Bellow dramatizes the suddenness of the wealth and fame that rained down on Bloom in the late 1980s. The cause, as Bellow says, was the publication of a warlike… More

Re-Opening the American Mind

– Liel Liebovitz, "Re-Opening the American Mind," Tablet, 11 April 2012.
Excerpt: The bravado hid a far more serious vein. Those who accused him of elitism, Bloom argued, were getting it all wrong. He wasn’t a cranky conservative—a “grumpy guru,” as… More

Allan Bloom’s Guide to College

– Matt Feeney, "Allan Bloom’s Guide to College," New Yorker, 12 April 2012.
Excerpt: I don’t point this out to suggest Bloom was blind to these ironies. I do so  to note that he is a less reliable ally in the partisan fight against relativism  than many… More

Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind Twenty-Five Years Later

– "Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind Twenty-Five Years Later: The Continuing Failure of Higher Education?," panel discussion with Nathan Tarcov, Bill Kristol, Hillel Fradkin, Janet Dougherty, moderated by John Walters, hosted by the Hudson Institute, Washington, DC, 15 June 2012.
Twenty-five years ago, Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students offered a… More

The Reopening of the American Mind

– Jay Schalin, "The Reopening of the American Mind," The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, 4 July 2012.
The publication of Closing of the American Mind was followed by the 1989 appearance of Rush Limbaugh on the national airwaves and the Internet’s emergence in the early 1990s. Conservative… More

Conference on the 25th Anniversary of The Closing of the American Mind

– Conference on the 25th anniversary of Allan Bloom's bestseller The Closing of the American Mind, hosted by the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard University, 21 Sept. 2012. The first panel is on Students and is chaired by Arthur Melzer, with Kathryn Sensen, James Hankins, and Paul Cantor as speakers. The second panel is on the University and is chaired by R. Shep Melnick, with Nannerl Keohane, Rita Koganzon, and James Piereson. The third panel is chaired by William Kristol and features Margaret Soltan, Michael Davis and Nasser Behnegar as speakers.  
   

Full Bloom

– Algis Valiunas, Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2015.
Excerpt: Yet is one right to believe that Bloom represented political philosophy at its highest reach, and that he spoke for the best life possible? During the season of Bloom’s… More

Multimedia

Reply to Burnyeat

– "The Studies of Leo Strauss: An Exchange," New York Review of Books, 30 May 1985.
Excerpt: M.F. Burnyeat’s attempt to wake a sleeping America to the political threat posed to it by the late Leo Strauss is McCarthyite in the precise sense of the term. His calumny… More

The Crisis of American Democracy and Liberal Education

– The Crisis of American Democracy and Liberal Education: Collected Essays, 1986.
Excerpt: Therefore a truly political judgment is maintained so long as the issues are matters of life and death. Policy orientation helps keep the focus which we are too likely to lose. It… More

The Open Mind

– Interview with Allan Bloom, The Open Mind, PBS, 7 June 1987.
Watch The Closing of the American Mind on PBS. See more from The Open Mind.

The Closing of the American Mind

– The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students, with a foreword by Saul Bellow, Simon & Schuster, 1987.  Reprint, Simon & Schuster, 2012.
Excerpt: I used to think that young Americans began whatever education they were to get at the age of eighteen, that their early lives were spiritually empty and that they arrived at the… More

How Nietzsche Conquered America

– "How Nietzsche Conquered America," The Wilson Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 80-93.
Excerpt: Modern democracy was, of course, the target of Nietzsche’s criticism.A s he saw it, rationalisma nd its egalitarianismw ere the contrary of creativity; daily life was for him… More

An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited

– Sidney Hook, "An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited," review of The Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom, The American Scholar, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Winter 1989), pp.  123, 126-128, 130-132, 134-135.
Excerpt: This denial of the truth about the rampaging students of the sixties is reflected even in the most respectable of the critical reviews Bloom has received. Among the most… More

Confronting the Constitution

– Confronting the Constitution: The Challenge to Locke, Montesquieu, Jefferson, and the Federalists from Utilitarianism, Historicism, Marxism, Freudianism, Pragmatism, Exististentialism..., ed. Allan Bloom, American Enterprise Institute, 1990.

Giants and Dwarfs

– Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960-1990, Simon and Schuster, 1990.
Excerpt: And we may further suppose that Gulliver has certain hidden thoughts and intentions which are only to be revealed by closely cross-examining him. He indicates this himself at the… More

“The Closing of the American Mind,” Revisited

– S. J. D. Green, "The Closing of the American Mind, Revisited," The Antioch Review, Vol. 56, No. 1, Our Therapeutic State (Winter 1998), pp. 26-36.
Excerpt: Take heed of the subtitle: How Higher Edcation Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students. For that is what the book is really about. Moreover, in… More

The Historical Context of Allan Bloom

– "The Historical Context of Allan Bloom," panel discussion with James Ceaser, James Miller, John Tomasi and John McWhorter, hosted by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, C-SPAN, 3 October 2007.

Allan Bloom and America by Thomas West

– Thomas G. West, "Allan Bloom and America," Claremont Review of Books, 19 November 2007.
Excerpt: Nietzsche, one of Bloom’s authorities on the current malaise, rightly points out the debilitating effect of Great Books education in our world, in a passage I first read… More

Strange Bedfellows: Allan Bloom and John Dewey Against Liberal Education

– Patrick J. Deneen, "Strange Bedfellows: Allan Bloom and John Dewey Against Liberal Education, Rightly Understood," The Good Society, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2008), pp. 49-55.
Excerpt: The educational theories of Allan Bloom and John Dewey could not apparently be more at odds. Bloom argued on behalf of the aspiration of philosophy to apprehend the truth, even if… More

The Book That Drove Them Crazy

– Andrew Ferguson, "The Book That Drove Them Crazy: Allan Bloom's 'Closing of the American Mind' 25 Years Later," Weekly Standard, 9 April 2012.
Excerpt: Among much else, Bellow dramatizes the suddenness of the wealth and fame that rained down on Bloom in the late 1980s. The cause, as Bellow says, was the publication of a warlike… More

Re-Opening the American Mind

– Liel Liebovitz, "Re-Opening the American Mind," Tablet, 11 April 2012.
Excerpt: The bravado hid a far more serious vein. Those who accused him of elitism, Bloom argued, were getting it all wrong. He wasn’t a cranky conservative—a “grumpy guru,” as… More

Allan Bloom’s Guide to College

– Matt Feeney, "Allan Bloom’s Guide to College," New Yorker, 12 April 2012.
Excerpt: I don’t point this out to suggest Bloom was blind to these ironies. I do so  to note that he is a less reliable ally in the partisan fight against relativism  than many… More

Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind Twenty-Five Years Later

– "Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind Twenty-Five Years Later: The Continuing Failure of Higher Education?," panel discussion with Nathan Tarcov, Bill Kristol, Hillel Fradkin, Janet Dougherty, moderated by John Walters, hosted by the Hudson Institute, Washington, DC, 15 June 2012.
Twenty-five years ago, Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students offered a… More

The Reopening of the American Mind

– Jay Schalin, "The Reopening of the American Mind," The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, 4 July 2012.
The publication of Closing of the American Mind was followed by the 1989 appearance of Rush Limbaugh on the national airwaves and the Internet’s emergence in the early 1990s. Conservative… More

Conference on the 25th Anniversary of The Closing of the American Mind

– Conference on the 25th anniversary of Allan Bloom's bestseller The Closing of the American Mind, hosted by the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard University, 21 Sept. 2012. The first panel is on Students and is chaired by Arthur Melzer, with Kathryn Sensen, James Hankins, and Paul Cantor as speakers. The second panel is on the University and is chaired by R. Shep Melnick, with Nannerl Keohane, Rita Koganzon, and James Piereson. The third panel is chaired by William Kristol and features Margaret Soltan, Michael Davis and Nasser Behnegar as speakers.  
   

Full Bloom

– Algis Valiunas, Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2015.
Excerpt: Yet is one right to believe that Bloom represented political philosophy at its highest reach, and that he spoke for the best life possible? During the season of Bloom’s… More

Teaching

Reply to Burnyeat

– "The Studies of Leo Strauss: An Exchange," New York Review of Books, 30 May 1985.
Excerpt: M.F. Burnyeat’s attempt to wake a sleeping America to the political threat posed to it by the late Leo Strauss is McCarthyite in the precise sense of the term. His calumny… More

The Crisis of American Democracy and Liberal Education

– The Crisis of American Democracy and Liberal Education: Collected Essays, 1986.
Excerpt: Therefore a truly political judgment is maintained so long as the issues are matters of life and death. Policy orientation helps keep the focus which we are too likely to lose. It… More

The Open Mind

– Interview with Allan Bloom, The Open Mind, PBS, 7 June 1987.
Watch The Closing of the American Mind on PBS. See more from The Open Mind.

The Closing of the American Mind

– The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students, with a foreword by Saul Bellow, Simon & Schuster, 1987.  Reprint, Simon & Schuster, 2012.
Excerpt: I used to think that young Americans began whatever education they were to get at the age of eighteen, that their early lives were spiritually empty and that they arrived at the… More

How Nietzsche Conquered America

– "How Nietzsche Conquered America," The Wilson Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 80-93.
Excerpt: Modern democracy was, of course, the target of Nietzsche’s criticism.A s he saw it, rationalisma nd its egalitarianismw ere the contrary of creativity; daily life was for him… More

An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited

– Sidney Hook, "An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited," review of The Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom, The American Scholar, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Winter 1989), pp.  123, 126-128, 130-132, 134-135.
Excerpt: This denial of the truth about the rampaging students of the sixties is reflected even in the most respectable of the critical reviews Bloom has received. Among the most… More

Confronting the Constitution

– Confronting the Constitution: The Challenge to Locke, Montesquieu, Jefferson, and the Federalists from Utilitarianism, Historicism, Marxism, Freudianism, Pragmatism, Exististentialism..., ed. Allan Bloom, American Enterprise Institute, 1990.

Giants and Dwarfs

– Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960-1990, Simon and Schuster, 1990.
Excerpt: And we may further suppose that Gulliver has certain hidden thoughts and intentions which are only to be revealed by closely cross-examining him. He indicates this himself at the… More

“The Closing of the American Mind,” Revisited

– S. J. D. Green, "The Closing of the American Mind, Revisited," The Antioch Review, Vol. 56, No. 1, Our Therapeutic State (Winter 1998), pp. 26-36.
Excerpt: Take heed of the subtitle: How Higher Edcation Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students. For that is what the book is really about. Moreover, in… More

The Historical Context of Allan Bloom

– "The Historical Context of Allan Bloom," panel discussion with James Ceaser, James Miller, John Tomasi and John McWhorter, hosted by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, C-SPAN, 3 October 2007.

Allan Bloom and America by Thomas West

– Thomas G. West, "Allan Bloom and America," Claremont Review of Books, 19 November 2007.
Excerpt: Nietzsche, one of Bloom’s authorities on the current malaise, rightly points out the debilitating effect of Great Books education in our world, in a passage I first read… More

Strange Bedfellows: Allan Bloom and John Dewey Against Liberal Education

– Patrick J. Deneen, "Strange Bedfellows: Allan Bloom and John Dewey Against Liberal Education, Rightly Understood," The Good Society, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2008), pp. 49-55.
Excerpt: The educational theories of Allan Bloom and John Dewey could not apparently be more at odds. Bloom argued on behalf of the aspiration of philosophy to apprehend the truth, even if… More

The Book That Drove Them Crazy

– Andrew Ferguson, "The Book That Drove Them Crazy: Allan Bloom's 'Closing of the American Mind' 25 Years Later," Weekly Standard, 9 April 2012.
Excerpt: Among much else, Bellow dramatizes the suddenness of the wealth and fame that rained down on Bloom in the late 1980s. The cause, as Bellow says, was the publication of a warlike… More

Re-Opening the American Mind

– Liel Liebovitz, "Re-Opening the American Mind," Tablet, 11 April 2012.
Excerpt: The bravado hid a far more serious vein. Those who accused him of elitism, Bloom argued, were getting it all wrong. He wasn’t a cranky conservative—a “grumpy guru,” as… More

Allan Bloom’s Guide to College

– Matt Feeney, "Allan Bloom’s Guide to College," New Yorker, 12 April 2012.
Excerpt: I don’t point this out to suggest Bloom was blind to these ironies. I do so  to note that he is a less reliable ally in the partisan fight against relativism  than many… More

Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind Twenty-Five Years Later

– "Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind Twenty-Five Years Later: The Continuing Failure of Higher Education?," panel discussion with Nathan Tarcov, Bill Kristol, Hillel Fradkin, Janet Dougherty, moderated by John Walters, hosted by the Hudson Institute, Washington, DC, 15 June 2012.
Twenty-five years ago, Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students offered a… More

The Reopening of the American Mind

– Jay Schalin, "The Reopening of the American Mind," The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, 4 July 2012.
The publication of Closing of the American Mind was followed by the 1989 appearance of Rush Limbaugh on the national airwaves and the Internet’s emergence in the early 1990s. Conservative… More

Conference on the 25th Anniversary of The Closing of the American Mind

– Conference on the 25th anniversary of Allan Bloom's bestseller The Closing of the American Mind, hosted by the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard University, 21 Sept. 2012. The first panel is on Students and is chaired by Arthur Melzer, with Kathryn Sensen, James Hankins, and Paul Cantor as speakers. The second panel is on the University and is chaired by R. Shep Melnick, with Nannerl Keohane, Rita Koganzon, and James Piereson. The third panel is chaired by William Kristol and features Margaret Soltan, Michael Davis and Nasser Behnegar as speakers.  
   

Full Bloom

– Algis Valiunas, Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2015.
Excerpt: Yet is one right to believe that Bloom represented political philosophy at its highest reach, and that he spoke for the best life possible? During the season of Bloom’s… More