The brilliant, controversial, bestselling critique of American culture that âhits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapyâ (The New York Times)ânow featuring a new afterword by Andrew Ferguson in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition.
In 1987, eminent political philosopher Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind, an appraisal of contemporary America that âhits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapyâ (The New York Times) and has not only been vindicated, but has also become more urgent today. In clear, spirited prose, Bloom argues that the social and political crises of contemporary America are part of a larger intellectual crisis: the result of a dangerous narrowing of curiosity and exploration by the university elites.
Now, in this twenty-fifth anniversary edition, acclaimed author and journalist Andrew Ferguson contributes a new essay that describes why Bloomâs argument caused such a furor at publication and why our culture so deeply resists its truths today.