-
The Closing of the American Mind
- Narrated by: Christopher Hurt
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $19.46
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Republic of Plato
- By: Allan Bloom
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Long regarded as the most accurate rendering of Plato's Republic that has yet been published, this widely acclaimed translation by Allan Bloom was the first to take a strictly literal approach. In addition to the annotated text, there is also a rich and valuable essay—as well as indices—which will enable listeners to better understand the heart of Plato's intention.
By: Allan Bloom
-
Ravelstein
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor at a prominent Midwestern university and a man who glories in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously - and much beyond his means. His close friend Chick has suggested that he put forth a book of his convictions about the ideas that sustain humankind, or kill it, and much to Ravelstein’s own surprise, he does and becomes a millionaire.
-
-
If Voltaire did a bio of Plato
- By Anonymous User on 03-09-23
By: Saul Bellow
-
The Coddling of the American Mind
- How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
- By: Jonathan Haidt, Greg Lukianoff
- Narrated by: Jonathan Haidt
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The culture of “safety” and its intolerance of opposing viewpoints has left many young people anxious and unprepared for adult life. Lukianoff and Haidt offer a comprehensive set of reforms that will strengthen young people and institutions, allowing us all to reap the benefits of diversity, including viewpoint diversity. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what’s happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live and work and cooperate across party lines.
-
-
Only Praise
- By TJ on 12-02-18
By: Jonathan Haidt, and others
-
The Western Canon
- The Books and School of the Ages
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: James Armstrong
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....
-
-
A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Canceling of the American Mind
- Cancel Culture Undermines Trust, Destroys Institutions, and Threatens Us All—but There Is a Solution
- By: Greg Lukianoff, Rikki Schlott
- Narrated by: Rikki Schlott, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cancel culture is a new phenomenon, and The Canceling of the American Mind is the first book to codify it and survey its effects. From the team that brought you the bestselling Coddling of the American Mind comes hard data and research on what cancel culture is and how it works, along with hundreds of new examples showing the left and the right both working to silence their enemies. The Canceling of the American Mind will change how you view cancel culture.
-
-
Rikki’s delivery almost made me stop listening!
- By cellomansings on 10-28-23
By: Greg Lukianoff, and others
-
Social Justice Fallacies
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Brad Sanders
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The quest for social justice is a powerful crusade of our time, with an appeal to many different people, for many different reasons. But those who use the same words do not always present the same meanings. Clarifying those meanings is the first step toward finding out what we agree on and disagree on. From there, it is largely a question of what the facts are. Social Justice Fallacies reveals how many things that are thought to be true simply cannot stand up to documented facts, which are often the opposite of what is widely believed.
-
-
Timely book by 93 year old Thomas Sowell
- By Wayne on 09-27-23
By: Thomas Sowell
-
The Republic of Plato
- By: Allan Bloom
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Long regarded as the most accurate rendering of Plato's Republic that has yet been published, this widely acclaimed translation by Allan Bloom was the first to take a strictly literal approach. In addition to the annotated text, there is also a rich and valuable essay—as well as indices—which will enable listeners to better understand the heart of Plato's intention.
By: Allan Bloom
-
Ravelstein
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor at a prominent Midwestern university and a man who glories in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously - and much beyond his means. His close friend Chick has suggested that he put forth a book of his convictions about the ideas that sustain humankind, or kill it, and much to Ravelstein’s own surprise, he does and becomes a millionaire.
-
-
If Voltaire did a bio of Plato
- By Anonymous User on 03-09-23
By: Saul Bellow
-
The Coddling of the American Mind
- How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
- By: Jonathan Haidt, Greg Lukianoff
- Narrated by: Jonathan Haidt
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The culture of “safety” and its intolerance of opposing viewpoints has left many young people anxious and unprepared for adult life. Lukianoff and Haidt offer a comprehensive set of reforms that will strengthen young people and institutions, allowing us all to reap the benefits of diversity, including viewpoint diversity. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what’s happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live and work and cooperate across party lines.
-
-
Only Praise
- By TJ on 12-02-18
By: Jonathan Haidt, and others
-
The Western Canon
- The Books and School of the Ages
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: James Armstrong
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....
-
-
A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Canceling of the American Mind
- Cancel Culture Undermines Trust, Destroys Institutions, and Threatens Us All—but There Is a Solution
- By: Greg Lukianoff, Rikki Schlott
- Narrated by: Rikki Schlott, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cancel culture is a new phenomenon, and The Canceling of the American Mind is the first book to codify it and survey its effects. From the team that brought you the bestselling Coddling of the American Mind comes hard data and research on what cancel culture is and how it works, along with hundreds of new examples showing the left and the right both working to silence their enemies. The Canceling of the American Mind will change how you view cancel culture.
-
-
Rikki’s delivery almost made me stop listening!
- By cellomansings on 10-28-23
By: Greg Lukianoff, and others
-
Social Justice Fallacies
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Brad Sanders
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The quest for social justice is a powerful crusade of our time, with an appeal to many different people, for many different reasons. But those who use the same words do not always present the same meanings. Clarifying those meanings is the first step toward finding out what we agree on and disagree on. From there, it is largely a question of what the facts are. Social Justice Fallacies reveals how many things that are thought to be true simply cannot stand up to documented facts, which are often the opposite of what is widely believed.
-
-
Timely book by 93 year old Thomas Sowell
- By Wayne on 09-27-23
By: Thomas Sowell
-
Ideas Have Consequences
- Expanded Edition
- By: Richard M. Weaver, Roger Kimball - foreword, Ted J. Smith III - afterword, and others
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard M. Weaver argues that the decline of Western civilization resulted from the rising acceptance of relativism over absolute reality. In spite of increased knowledge, this retreat from the realist intellectual tradition has weakened the Western capacity to reason, with catastrophic consequences for social order and individual rights. But Weaver also offers a realistic remedy. These difficulties are the product not of necessity, but of intelligent choice.
-
-
A Prophetic Work
- By jdawg on 02-16-19
By: Richard M. Weaver, and others
-
Unwoke
- How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America
- By: Ted Cruz
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a book both articulate and desperately needed, bestselling author Senator Ted Cruz provides a long overdue argument against the woke takeover of education, big business, the media, and Hollywood.
-
-
Very interesting! Loved the book.
- By Amazon Customer on 11-12-23
By: Ted Cruz
-
Democracy in America
- By: Alexis de Tocqueville
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 34 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and civil servant, made a nine-month journey through the eastern United States. The result was Democracy in America, a monumental study of the strengths and weaknesses of the nation’s evolving politics. His insightful work has become one of the most influential political texts ever written on America.
-
-
Most Listenable, if not the Best Translation
- By Michael Allen on 10-04-13
-
Intellectuals
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the time of Voltaire and Rousseau, the secular intellectual has increasingly filled the vacuum left by the decline of the cleric and assumed the functions of moral mentor and critic of mankind. This fascinating portrait of the minds that have shaped the modern world examines the moral credentials of those whose thoughts have influenced humanity.
-
-
Bias much?
- By Amazon Customer on 12-15-10
By: Paul Johnson
-
The Great Awakening
- Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance
- By: Alex Jones, Kent Heckenlively - contributor
- Narrated by: Simon Sharp
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Working with New York Times bestselling author Kent Heckenlively, Alex Jones masterfully gives you the deeper discussion about such hot button topics as the truth behind the globalists plans for artificial intelligence (AI), the central bank digital currency, social credit scores, Big Tech tyranny, censorship, fifteen-minute cities, the unholy alliance between big business and big government, the military-intelligence-industrial complex—which is hell-bent on eternal war—and the all-out assault on free speech and the Second Amendment.
-
-
Cannot believe Alex didn’t narrate :.(
- By Andrew D. Thomas on 11-18-23
By: Alex Jones, and others
-
The Madness of Crowds
- Gender, Race and Identity
- By: Douglas Murray
- Narrated by: Douglas Murray
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Madness of Crowds Douglas Murray investigates the dangers of ‘woke’ culture and the rise of identity politics. In lively, razor-sharp prose he examines the most controversial issues of our moment: sexuality, gender, technology and race, with interludes on the Marxist foundations of ‘wokeness’, the impact of tech and how, in an increasingly online culture, we must relearn the ability to forgive.
-
-
An Urgent Read for Our Over-woke Times
- By Justin J. Norman on 09-26-19
By: Douglas Murray
-
America's Cultural Revolution
- How the Radical Left Conquered Everything
- By: Christopher F. Rufo
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 1960s, Mao launched China’s Cultural Revolution. Cities grew overcrowded. Technocrats demanded progress from above. Anyone opposed was sent to be “re-educated.” China’s revolution was bloody, fast, and a failure, but what if America started a revolution at the same time, based on the same bad ideas, and it’s just been slower, calmer, and more effective?
-
-
Outstanding Analysis
- By Roman on 07-22-23
-
The Age of Entitlement
- America Since the Sixties
- By: Christopher Caldwell
- Narrated by: Christopher Caldwell
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A major American intellectual makes the historical case that the reforms of the 1960s, reforms intended to make the nation more just and humane, instead left many Americans feeling alienated, despised, misled - and ready to put an adventurer in the White House. Christopher Caldwell has spent years studying the liberal uprising of the 1960s and its unforeseen consequences. Even the reforms that Americans love best have come with costs that are staggeringly high - in wealth, freedom, and social stability - and that have been spread unevenly among classes and generations.
-
-
Do laudable ends justify unconstitutional means?
- By LBJ on 02-08-20
-
The Right Side of History
- How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great
- By: Ben Shapiro
- Narrated by: Ben Shapiro
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America has a God-shaped hole in its heart, argues New York Times best-selling author Ben Shapiro, and we shouldn't fill it with politics and hate.
-
-
As an atheist
- By Benjamin on 03-27-19
By: Ben Shapiro
-
Explaining Postmodernism (Expanded Edition)
- Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault
- By: Stephen R. C. Hicks
- Narrated by: Scott R. Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Explaining Postmodernism is intellectual history with a polemical twist, providing fresh insights into the debates underlying the furor over political correctness, multiculturalism, and the future of liberal democracy.
-
-
Does not actually explain postmodernism.
- By Daniel Schealler on 02-04-19
-
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
- By: Yuval Noah Harari
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today's most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Noah Lugeons on 09-11-18
-
Black Rednecks and White Liberals
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Hugh Mann
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This explosive new audiobook challenges many of the long-held assumptions about blacks, about Jews, about Germans and Nazis, about slavery, and about education. Plainly written, powerfully reasoned, and backed with a startling array of documented facts, Black Rednecks and White Liberals takes on the trendy intellectuals of our times as well as historic interpreters of American life.
-
-
Great Book, Somewhat Misleading Title
- By ComputerBastard on 05-15-09
By: Thomas Sowell
Publisher's summary
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)
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
Between Past and Future
- Eight Exercises in Political Thought
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hannah Arendt's insightful observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute an impassioned contribution to political philosophy. In Between Past and Future, Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill the vital essence of these concepts and use them to regain a frame of reference for the future.
-
-
Just stunning
- By Peter Stephens on 02-26-18
By: Hannah Arendt
-
What Are We Doing Here?
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila and Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith. Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Alexis de Tocqueville, inform our political consciousness or discussing how beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display.
-
-
Unpersuasive and a bit repetitive
- By Adam Shields on 03-07-18
-
The Enlightenment
- And Why It Still Matters
- By: Anthony Pagden
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of our most renowned and brilliant historians takes a fresh look at the revolutionary intellectual movement that laid the foundation for the modern world. Liberty and equality. Human rights. Freedom of thought and expression. Belief in reason and progress. The value of scientific inquiry. These are just some of the ideas that were conceived and developed during the Enlightenment, and which changed forever the intellectual landscape of the Western world.
-
-
A thorough political tract rather than history
- By Jacobus on 03-08-14
By: Anthony Pagden
-
The Demon in Democracy
- Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies
- By: Ryszard Legutko, John O'Sullivan, Teresa Adelson
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ryszard Legutko lived and suffered under communism for decades - and he fought with the Polish anti-communist movement to abolish it. Having lived for two decades under a liberal democracy, however, he has discovered that these two political systems have a lot more in common than one might think. They both stem from the same historical roots in early modernity, and accept similar presuppositions about history, society, religion, politics, culture, and human nature.
-
-
Important book on political philosophy
- By Wayne on 08-02-19
By: Ryszard Legutko, and others
-
Philosophy
- Who Needs It
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who needs philosophy? Ayn Rand's answer: Everyone. This collection of essays was the last work planned by Ayn Rand before her death in 1982. In it, she summarizes her view of philosophy and deals with a broad spectrum of topics. According to Ayn Rand, the choice we make is not whether to have a philosophy, but which one to have: a rational, conscious, and therefore practical one, or a contradictory, unidentified, and ultimately lethal one.
-
-
Deep and provocative
- By Sierra Bravo on 05-21-09
By: Ayn Rand
-
Irrationality
- A History of the Dark Side of Reason
- By: Justin E. H. Smith
- Narrated by: Jeff Harding
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discovering that reason is the defining feature of our species, we named ourselves the “rational animal”. But is this flattering story itself rational? In this sweeping account of irrationality from antiquity to today - from the fifth-century BC murder of Hippasus for revealing the existence of irrational numbers to the rise of Twitter mobs and the election of Donald Trump - Justin Smith says the evidence suggests the opposite.
-
-
A good brain workout
- By ThomasC on 04-09-19
-
Between Past and Future
- Eight Exercises in Political Thought
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hannah Arendt's insightful observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute an impassioned contribution to political philosophy. In Between Past and Future, Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill the vital essence of these concepts and use them to regain a frame of reference for the future.
-
-
Just stunning
- By Peter Stephens on 02-26-18
By: Hannah Arendt
-
What Are We Doing Here?
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila and Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith. Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Alexis de Tocqueville, inform our political consciousness or discussing how beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display.
-
-
Unpersuasive and a bit repetitive
- By Adam Shields on 03-07-18
-
The Enlightenment
- And Why It Still Matters
- By: Anthony Pagden
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of our most renowned and brilliant historians takes a fresh look at the revolutionary intellectual movement that laid the foundation for the modern world. Liberty and equality. Human rights. Freedom of thought and expression. Belief in reason and progress. The value of scientific inquiry. These are just some of the ideas that were conceived and developed during the Enlightenment, and which changed forever the intellectual landscape of the Western world.
-
-
A thorough political tract rather than history
- By Jacobus on 03-08-14
By: Anthony Pagden
-
The Demon in Democracy
- Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies
- By: Ryszard Legutko, John O'Sullivan, Teresa Adelson
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ryszard Legutko lived and suffered under communism for decades - and he fought with the Polish anti-communist movement to abolish it. Having lived for two decades under a liberal democracy, however, he has discovered that these two political systems have a lot more in common than one might think. They both stem from the same historical roots in early modernity, and accept similar presuppositions about history, society, religion, politics, culture, and human nature.
-
-
Important book on political philosophy
- By Wayne on 08-02-19
By: Ryszard Legutko, and others
-
Philosophy
- Who Needs It
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who needs philosophy? Ayn Rand's answer: Everyone. This collection of essays was the last work planned by Ayn Rand before her death in 1982. In it, she summarizes her view of philosophy and deals with a broad spectrum of topics. According to Ayn Rand, the choice we make is not whether to have a philosophy, but which one to have: a rational, conscious, and therefore practical one, or a contradictory, unidentified, and ultimately lethal one.
-
-
Deep and provocative
- By Sierra Bravo on 05-21-09
By: Ayn Rand
-
Irrationality
- A History of the Dark Side of Reason
- By: Justin E. H. Smith
- Narrated by: Jeff Harding
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discovering that reason is the defining feature of our species, we named ourselves the “rational animal”. But is this flattering story itself rational? In this sweeping account of irrationality from antiquity to today - from the fifth-century BC murder of Hippasus for revealing the existence of irrational numbers to the rise of Twitter mobs and the election of Donald Trump - Justin Smith says the evidence suggests the opposite.
-
-
A good brain workout
- By ThomasC on 04-09-19
-
Deep Thought
- 42 Fantastic Quotes That Define Philosphy
- By: Gary Cox
- Narrated by: Richard Mitchley
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Douglas Adams points out, if there is no final answer to the question "what is the meaning of life?" 42 is as good or bad an answer as any other. Indeed, 42 quotes might be even better! Gary Cox guides us through 42 of the most misunderstood, misquoted, provocative, and significant quotes in the history of philosophy, providing witty and compelling commentary along the way.
-
-
Best philosophy intro ever
- By Fabian on 04-14-18
By: Gary Cox
-
The Voice of Reason
- Essays in Objectivist Thought
- By: Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the years between her first public lecture in 1961 and her last in 1981, Ayn Rand spoke and wrote about topics as different as education, medicine, Vietnam, and the death of Marilyn Monroe. In The Voice of Reason, these pieces are gathered together in book form for the first time. Written in the last decades of Rand's life, they reflect a life lived on principle, a probing mind, and a passionate intensity. With them are five essays by Leonard Peikoff, Rand's longtime associate and literary executor.
-
-
Explains Everything Of Today
- By L. Nicholson on 11-20-15
By: Ayn Rand, and others
-
Fools, Frauds and Firebrands
- Thinkers of the New Left
- By: Roger Scruton
- Narrated by: Rory Barnett
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of the leading critics of leftist orientations comes a study of the thinkers who have most influenced the attitudes of the New Left. Beginning with a ruthless analysis of New Leftism and concluding with a critique of the key strands in its thinking, Roger Scruton conducts a reappraisal of such major left-wing thinkers as E. P. Thompson, Ronald Dworkin, R. D. Laing, Jurgen Habermas, Gyorgy Lukacs, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Slavoj Žižek, Ralph Milliband, and Eric Hobsbawm. Scruton delivers a critique of modern left-wing thinking.
-
-
Deconstructing the New Left
- By Wayne on 01-17-20
By: Roger Scruton
-
Escape from Freedom
- By: Erich Fromm
- Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
lf a man cannot stand freedom, he will probably turn fascist. This, in the fewest possible words, is the essential argument in this modem classic, Escape from Freedom. The author, Erich Fromm, is a distinguished psychologist, late of Berlin and Heidelberg, now of New York City.
-
-
Why is this not required reading in high school?
- By Xander on 09-07-16
By: Erich Fromm
-
The Mind That Is Catholic
- Philosophical and Political Essays
- By: James V. Schall
- Narrated by: Tim Lundeen
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James V. Schall is a treasure of the Catholic intellectual tradition. A prolific author and essayist, Schall readily connects with his readers on sundry topics from war to friendship, philosophy, politics, and to ordinary everyday living. In his newest work, The Mind That Is Catholic, he presents a retrospective collection of his academic and literary essays written in the past 50 years.
-
-
Profound Insights
- By Considerable on 10-17-14
By: James V. Schall
-
A Short History of Ethics
- By: Alasdair MacIntyre
- Narrated by: Tim Dalgleish
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Short History of Ethics is a significant contribution written by one of the most important living philosophers. It remains an important work, ideal for all students interested in ethics and morality.
-
-
Great philosopher made ridiculous by accents
- By Olivia Walling on 10-04-17
-
What's So Great About America
- By: Dinesh D'Souza
- Narrated by: Dinesh D'Souza
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America is under attack as never before - not only from terrorists, but from people who provide a rationale for terrorism. Best-selling author Dinesh D'Souza takes on all of America's critics and proves them wrong - as perhaps only a writer with an immigrant's understanding of this country can.
-
-
Excellant!
- By William J. Schleue on 01-02-03
By: Dinesh D'Souza
-
The Story of Philosophy
- The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Durant lucidly describes the philosophical systems of such world-famous “monarchs of the mind” as Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire, and Nietzsche. Along with their ideas, he offers their flesh-and-blood biographies, placing their thoughts within their own time and place and elucidating their influence on our modern intellectual heritage. This book is packed with wisdom and wit.
-
-
Fantastic and insightful book
- By ESK on 01-25-13
By: Will Durant
-
Culture and the Death of God
- By: Terry Eagleton
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How to live in a supposedly faithless world threatened by religious fundamentalism? Terry Eagleton, formidable thinker and renowned cultural critic, investigates in this thought-provoking audiobook the contradictions, difficulties, and significance of the modern search for a replacement for God. Lucid, stylish, and entertaining in his usual manner, Eagleton presents a brilliant survey of modern thought that also serves as a timely, urgently needed intervention into our perilous political present.
-
-
Intelligently written and without Grace
- By Gary on 10-25-17
By: Terry Eagleton
-
A Thousand Small Sanities
- The Moral Adventure of Liberalism
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Thousand Small Sanities is a manifesto rooted in the lives of people who invented and extended the liberal tradition. Taking us from Montaigne to Mill, and from Middlemarch to the civil rights movement, Adam Gopnik argues that liberalism is not a form of centrism, nor simply another word for free markets, nor merely a term denoting a set of rights. It is something far more ambitious: the search for radical change by humane measures. Gopnik shows us why liberalism is one of the great moral adventures in human history.
-
-
Erudite and entertaining!
- By D. A. Vail on 05-20-19
By: Adam Gopnik
-
The God Argument
- The Case Against Religion and for Humanism
- By: A. C. Grayling
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What are the arguments for and against religion and religious belief - all of them - right across the range of reasons and motives that people have for being religious, and do they stand up to scrutiny? Can there be a clear, full statement of these arguments that once and for all will show what is at stake in this debate? Equally important: what is the alternative to religion as a view of the world and a foundation for morality?
-
-
Fascinating Topic Made Mind Numbingly Dull
- By m.emery on 06-17-15
By: A. C. Grayling
-
The Year of Our Lord 1943
- Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis
- By: Alan Jacobs
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.
-
-
The Audible is a Train Wreck
- By John on 09-04-18
By: Alan Jacobs
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Western Canon
- The Books and School of the Ages
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: James Armstrong
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....
-
-
A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Republic of Plato
- By: Allan Bloom
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Long regarded as the most accurate rendering of Plato's Republic that has yet been published, this widely acclaimed translation by Allan Bloom was the first to take a strictly literal approach. In addition to the annotated text, there is also a rich and valuable essay—as well as indices—which will enable listeners to better understand the heart of Plato's intention.
By: Allan Bloom
-
Ravelstein
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor at a prominent Midwestern university and a man who glories in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously - and much beyond his means. His close friend Chick has suggested that he put forth a book of his convictions about the ideas that sustain humankind, or kill it, and much to Ravelstein’s own surprise, he does and becomes a millionaire.
-
-
If Voltaire did a bio of Plato
- By Anonymous User on 03-09-23
By: Saul Bellow
-
Natural Right and History
- By: Leo Strauss
- Narrated by: Clark Cornell
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this classic work, Leo Strauss examines the problem of natural right and argues that there is a firm foundation in reality for the distinction between right and wrong in ethics and politics. On the centenary of Strauss's birth, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Walgreen Lectures which spawned the work, Natural Right and History remains as controversial and essential as ever.
-
-
Mismatch of text and narrator
- By Greg Camp on 03-14-24
By: Leo Strauss
-
The Closing of the Western Mind
- The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason
- By: Charles Freeman
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 368 AD, he changed the course of European history in ways that continue to have repercussions to the present day. Adopting those aspects of the religion that suited his purposes, he turned Rome on a course from the relatively open, tolerant, and pluralistic civilization of the Hellenistic world, towards a culture that was based on the rule of fixed authority, whether that of the Bible, or the writings of Ptolemy in astronomy and of Galen and Hippocrates in medicine.
-
-
Not proven
- By Jeffrey D on 04-30-21
By: Charles Freeman
-
Irrationality
- A History of the Dark Side of Reason
- By: Justin E. H. Smith
- Narrated by: Jeff Harding
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discovering that reason is the defining feature of our species, we named ourselves the “rational animal”. But is this flattering story itself rational? In this sweeping account of irrationality from antiquity to today - from the fifth-century BC murder of Hippasus for revealing the existence of irrational numbers to the rise of Twitter mobs and the election of Donald Trump - Justin Smith says the evidence suggests the opposite.
-
-
A good brain workout
- By ThomasC on 04-09-19
-
The Western Canon
- The Books and School of the Ages
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: James Armstrong
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....
-
-
A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Republic of Plato
- By: Allan Bloom
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Long regarded as the most accurate rendering of Plato's Republic that has yet been published, this widely acclaimed translation by Allan Bloom was the first to take a strictly literal approach. In addition to the annotated text, there is also a rich and valuable essay—as well as indices—which will enable listeners to better understand the heart of Plato's intention.
By: Allan Bloom
-
Ravelstein
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor at a prominent Midwestern university and a man who glories in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously - and much beyond his means. His close friend Chick has suggested that he put forth a book of his convictions about the ideas that sustain humankind, or kill it, and much to Ravelstein’s own surprise, he does and becomes a millionaire.
-
-
If Voltaire did a bio of Plato
- By Anonymous User on 03-09-23
By: Saul Bellow
-
Natural Right and History
- By: Leo Strauss
- Narrated by: Clark Cornell
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this classic work, Leo Strauss examines the problem of natural right and argues that there is a firm foundation in reality for the distinction between right and wrong in ethics and politics. On the centenary of Strauss's birth, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Walgreen Lectures which spawned the work, Natural Right and History remains as controversial and essential as ever.
-
-
Mismatch of text and narrator
- By Greg Camp on 03-14-24
By: Leo Strauss
-
The Closing of the Western Mind
- The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason
- By: Charles Freeman
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 368 AD, he changed the course of European history in ways that continue to have repercussions to the present day. Adopting those aspects of the religion that suited his purposes, he turned Rome on a course from the relatively open, tolerant, and pluralistic civilization of the Hellenistic world, towards a culture that was based on the rule of fixed authority, whether that of the Bible, or the writings of Ptolemy in astronomy and of Galen and Hippocrates in medicine.
-
-
Not proven
- By Jeffrey D on 04-30-21
By: Charles Freeman
-
Irrationality
- A History of the Dark Side of Reason
- By: Justin E. H. Smith
- Narrated by: Jeff Harding
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discovering that reason is the defining feature of our species, we named ourselves the “rational animal”. But is this flattering story itself rational? In this sweeping account of irrationality from antiquity to today - from the fifth-century BC murder of Hippasus for revealing the existence of irrational numbers to the rise of Twitter mobs and the election of Donald Trump - Justin Smith says the evidence suggests the opposite.
-
-
A good brain workout
- By ThomasC on 04-09-19
-
How To Read and Why
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, Berg Professor of English at New York University, and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. He has written more than 20 books of literary criticism. From a lifetime of writing and teaching about literature, this great scholar exhorts readers to consider the pleasures and benefits of reading well.
-
-
Like a review of my graduate English degree
- By Barbara on 10-01-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Allegory of the Cave
- By: Plato
- Narrated by: Adriel Brandt
- Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This simplistic and ingenious allegory from one of the fathers of Western philosophy casts light on society’s naiveté and ignorance.
-
-
Surprisingly Interesting Audiobook
- By Anonymous User on 05-29-22
By: Plato
-
The Revolt of the Masses
- By: Jose Ortega y Gasset
- Narrated by: Jackson Moss
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published as articles in El Sol in 1929, the essays in The Revolt of the Masses serve as a prescient analysis of a 20th-century creature - the "mass man" - and the mass society that he makes up. With strains of Jamesian pragmatism and the sociology of Gustave Le Bon, Ortega shows how technological and political changes reduced Western civilization to the lowest common denominator and made it susceptible to the pressures of statism.
-
-
Excellent Audiobook!
- By No to Statism on 06-21-21
-
Republic
- By: Plato, Christopher Rowe - translator
- Narrated by: Jim Barclay
- Length: 16 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Republic, Plato's masterwork, was first enjoyed 2,400 years ago and remains one of the most widely read books in the world. Presented as a dialogue between Plato's teacher Socrates and various interlocutors, it is an exhortation to philosophy, inviting its listeners to reflect on the choices to be made if we are to live the best life available to us. This complex, dynamic work creates a picture of an ideal society governed not by the desire for money, power or fame, but by philosophy, wisdom and justice.
-
-
arguably the best philosophy book on audible
- By Anonymous on 05-21-21
By: Plato, and others
-
The Conservative Mind
- From Burke to Eliot
- By: Russell Kirk
- Narrated by: Phillip Davidson
- Length: 19 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kirk defines "the conservative mind" by examining such brilliant men as Edmund Burke, James Fenimore Cooper, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Quincy Adams, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Benjamin Disraeli, Cardinal Newman, George Santayana, and finally, T.S. Eliot. Vigorously written, the book represents conservatism as an ideology born of sound intellectual traditions.
-
-
An interim review
- By James on 09-18-09
By: Russell Kirk
-
Race and Culture
- A World View
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Sowell is one of America’s leading voices on matters of race and ethnicity. In his book, Inside American Education, he surveyed the ills of American education from the primary grades to graduate school with “an impressive range of knowledge and acuity of observation”, according to the Wall Street Journal. Now, in his book Race and Culture, he asks the question: “What is it that allows certain groups to get ahead?” and the answer will undoubtedly create debates for years to come.
-
-
Thomas Sowell is rare breed of public intellectual
- By PAUL on 09-03-12
By: Thomas Sowell
-
Cultural Literacy
- What Every American Needs to Know
- By: E. D. Hirsch, James Trefil, Joseph F. Kett
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this forceful manifesto, Hirsch argues that children in the US are being deprived of the basic knowledge that would enable them to function in contemporary society. Includes 5,000 essential facts to know.
By: E. D. Hirsch, and others
-
The Modern Scholar
- Shakespeare: The Seven Major Tragedies
- By: Professor Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Professor Harold Bloom
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shakespeare's seven great tragedies contain unmistakable elements that set them apart from any other plays ever written. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare embodied in the character of Juliet the world's most impressive representation ever of a woman in love. With Julius Caesar, the great playwright produced a drama of astonishing and perpetual relevance.
-
-
Lowest WPM Ever
- By Ronald on 11-16-11
-
The Breakdown of Higher Education
- How It Happened, the Damage It Does, and What Can Be Done
- By: John M. Ellis
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Having watched the deterioration of academia up close for the past 50 years, Ellis locates the core of the problem in a change in the composition of the faculty during this time, from mildly left-leaning to almost exclusively leftist. He explains how astonishing historical luck led to the success of a plan first devised by a small group of activists to use college campuses to promote radical politics, and why laws and regulations designed to prevent the politicizing of higher education proved insufficient.
-
-
It’s not for everyone, but I enjoyed it
- By Brian Sachetta on 12-13-20
By: John M. Ellis
-
The Bright Book of Life
- Novels to Read and Reread
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this valedictory volume, Yale professor Harold Bloom — who for more than half a century was regarded as America's most daringly original and controversial literary critic — gives us his only book devoted entirely to the art of the novel. With his hallmark percipience, remarkable scholarship, and extraordinary devotion to sublimity, Bloom offers meditations on 48 essential works spanning the Western canon.
-
-
Classic Bloom, but a curious reading of him
- By J. J. Kuzma on 09-10-21
By: Harold Bloom
-
Leo Strauss
- Amerikanske tænkere
- By: Astrid Nonbo Andersen, Christian Olaf Christiansen
- Narrated by: Morten Rønnelund
- Length: 2 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leo Strauss var politisk filosof. Født i Tyskland, men emigrerede i 1937 til USA. Strauss har argumenteret for, at moderne liberalisme og videnskab har ført til vaerdirelativisme, og at det på denne baggrund er nødvendigt at rehabilitere antikkens politiske filosofi, der udmaerker sig ved at kunne besvare spørgsmålene om det gode styre og det gode liv.
-
-
Forsøg på at forbedre forståelsen i DK af USA
- By Amazon Customer on 02-12-20
By: Astrid Nonbo Andersen, and others
-
The Canceling of the American Mind
- Cancel Culture Undermines Trust, Destroys Institutions, and Threatens Us All—but There Is a Solution
- By: Greg Lukianoff, Rikki Schlott
- Narrated by: Rikki Schlott, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cancel culture is a new phenomenon, and The Canceling of the American Mind is the first book to codify it and survey its effects. From the team that brought you the bestselling Coddling of the American Mind comes hard data and research on what cancel culture is and how it works, along with hundreds of new examples showing the left and the right both working to silence their enemies. The Canceling of the American Mind will change how you view cancel culture.
-
-
Rikki’s delivery almost made me stop listening!
- By cellomansings on 10-28-23
By: Greg Lukianoff, and others
What listeners say about The Closing of the American Mind
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- robert
- 04-17-19
Excellent
One of the best books you will listen to. Seldom it is that I'm actually hearing anything new these days. Everything is rehashed like the tiring "marshmallow test". This book is a train of consciousness from a brilliant mind. There is a little background noise in a few spots. no biggie.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Chico
- 08-12-20
Poignant today
Written in 1980’s, Mr. Bloom’s insights now seem prophetic .
This didn’t happen overnight, and we are reaping what has been sown.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Allen
- 05-02-22
The Audio Quality Is Completely Unacceptable
I've been an Audible subscriber for years. This audio book is by far the worst audio quality I have ever heard. There are many background sound artifacts, as some reviewers here rightly have said. The overall sound engineering is also pathetic. Distortion clipping can be heard on numerous occasions when Christopher Hurt naturally inflects Allan Bloom's text. While this was recorded in 1992, I do not remember any recording from that year sounding like it is being played from a wax cylinder. This narration would be my first such experience.
Despite the notorious listening of this format, I think the book itself is one of the most prescient and insightful critiques of American higher education. Bloom's descriptions of the competing and developing philosophies affecting Europe and America are masterful. He uses this historical understanding to trace their appearances on university campuses and the illiberal regression that resulted in the humanities and social sciences.
This book is incredibly important, I think. It's just shameful and disappointing that this is the only audio version of the book. Audible clearly should make a newer version of this work that has higher quality.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- James Douglas Wingate
- 09-14-18
Machine gun narration nearly ruins fine book.
Allan Bloom's book The Closing of the American Mind was one of the formative works of my youth. Bloom's critique impaired my youthful, unfounded, know-it-all confidence and set me on a path of lifelong study. I expected to enjoy reviewing the book and deepening my understanding of it by listening to it as an audiobook. And if the Audible app for iPhone offered a narration speed in between 0.75x and 1.0x, perhaps 0.9x, one could slow Hurt down to a speed at which one might be able to understand, follow, and think about the difficult thoughts he rattles off. However, as matters stand, I do not know how long I will be able to endure Hurt's rapid, mumbly performance.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Zen
- 08-24-21
Prescient & thought provoking
Bloom’s erudite style may make him difficult to digest for many readers/listeners who are less widely read and he will doubtless come-off as a plaintive curmudgeonly crank to those of the modern leftist disposition; but I find his perspectives on the state of the American mind and its attendant problems, his diagnoses of the intellectual and spiritual malaises of the West and the challenges and failures of the university (e.g. the death of liberal education, the fragmentation of its soul, the loss of unifying purpose and vision etc.) that have become ascendant and only ever-accelerating since the 60s offers valuable insights into the past and serves as an important lens from which to grasp the current conditions of today’s society.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- RAC
- 11-17-05
A Must Read!
A must read!
Enlightening, in-depth, comprehensive dissective analysis of the American educational system. Bloom's firsthand account is extremely well-written and this audio version is expertly read. My only complaint is that it ended too soon.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
14 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Robert
- 04-24-10
Wonderful Book - Typical Boring Narration
Ive read the book several times and find it filled with many important insights for those living in our Constitutional republic. I also have an old recording on cassettes which were narrated by Allan Bloom himself. I was hoping that this would be the same recording, but available in a modern audio format without all the hiss of those old cassette tapes. Unfortunately, someone else narrated the book. He has the typical syrupy but monotonous kind of voice so often found in audio books. There's none of the inflection or passion of the author when he read the book. I find it hard to keep my eyes open when listening to this version. Does the narrator even understand what he's reading, its significance ? This version lulls me to sleep. I better not drive with it on. I doubt I will finish listening to this version. It was quite a disappointment. Even though I don't think I can listen to more than 10 minutes of it, I can't bear to give the book a horrible rating. The content deserves 5 stars. - -
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
13 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- michael
- 01-02-21
Must read book; distracting audio recording
This audiobook recording is plagued by what sounds like an unintended second track that bleeds in and out at the level of background noise. Given the often heady nature of Bloom's writing, the background noise is quite distracting.
The book itself is an entertaining form of true education; both in politics, history, philosophy, and a masterful use of the English language. I found the preface and introduction sections to be pedantic and at first doubted the value of listening to the following 14 hours of audio. But the book itself is quite good, particularly if you are interested in a very intelligent person's description of the de-evolution of the university-societal complex since the 1960's. If you are well aware of the horrific state of America today (January 1, 2021) and want to understand (on a level higher than Levin/Savage/diSouza/Shapiro) how we got here, I highly recommend Bloom's book -- but not this edition of the audiobook.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Holly Hatcher
- 07-08-22
Dr. Bloom used many words, but did not say much.
Dr. Bloom made his one helpful point at the beginning, that in the effort to teach American children to be open-minded, what was actually accomplished was that children were made to be closed-minded to the possibility that there was anything good, true, or beautiful. Simply, there are absolutely no absolutes, and everything is relative. While this is not a new point in the great conversation, Dr. Bloom does make this point well. After this point, the vast majority of the book is Dr. Bloom arguing that philosophy should be seen as the chef discipline of the academy. His support for this point, is that it was philosophy that brought about the enlightenment. While Dr. Bloom makes many points in his argument for the superiority of philosophy, he is simply wrong. It was the result of the reformation and the puritans that America came to be, and how it because exceptional. In actuality, what Dr. Bloom retells is the history of how wester civilization suppressed the truth about the God of the Bible, and he participates in this history. While Dr. Bloom is surely an intelligent and studied man, these this do not guaranty a grasp of the true. For a better resource, try The Mission of God by Joe Boot and The Consequence of Ideas by R. C. Sproul.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Teal T-Rex
- 09-17-18
More Relevant than Ever
Bloom’s critique of the University provides an excellent backdrop to understanding our current mess. Unless modern reformers are willing to explore the roots of what’s troubling today’s colleges, they cannot begin to move things in a better direction.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!