The Closing of the American Mind

By: Allan Bloom

Narrated by: Christopher Hurt

Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

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

(P)1992 by Blackstone Audiobooks; ©1987 by Alan Bloom

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)

Excellent...Must Listen

This was an excellent listen. Every American should listen to this a couple times. Great understanding of what happened before the "60's revolution" and what drove that cultural revolution.

Worth the time

Excellent and spot on. This book some 30 years ago predicted the results we are seeing now in the universities.

Refreshing.

Fantastic book and amazingly prescient. Well written and argued. He was like an oracle to the present day.

Not a great narrator.

Intelligent and straightforward.

So smart and intertwined with other valuable learning. Should be added to all reading lists.

The Devolution Of The University

A brilliant review of how the modern university came into being. It covers a wide range of philosophers from Aristotle to Nietzsche and examines their profound influence on western thought and the modern university. Bloom makes a sound case for the return to classical education.

interesting but contains a lot of fluff

very interesting though it seems filled with fluff, and could've been shortened with a couple of hours and still kept its message.

the recording also had alot of distracting backround noise.

Brilliant sophistry

Although profoundly influential in its day, this book reads more like a cry for personal vindication and is utterly unconvincing if occasionally brilliant in its execution

An essential classic on 21st cent Higher Education

This is an insightful classic on the troubles that plague higher education in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. (One issue is that you will find that if you turn it up loud enough, you will hear another voice in the background...someone else recording a different book; no, you are not crazy...there is a ghost voice in the background.)

I can definitely say I'll be listening to this 3x

I didn't wholeheartedly agree with everything he said but the book was insightful to say the least. I can say that this was a profound listen and will give it another listen in future times if I survive the coming PHASE II ....

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One of the greatest books ever written

I found this book to be highly educational.