The Closing of the American Mind Audiobook By Allan Bloom cover art

The Closing of the American Mind

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The Closing of the American Mind

By: Allan Bloom
Narrated by: Christopher Hurt
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About this listen

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 Democracy Ideologies & Doctrines Politics & Government Thought-Provoking

Critic reviews

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

What listeners say about The Closing of the American Mind

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Prescient Critique Insightful Analysis Excellent Narration Influential Work Philosophical Exploration
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

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.

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21 people found this helpful

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Worth the time

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

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4 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Refreshing.

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

Not a great narrator.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Intelligent and straightforward.

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

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

BACKGROUND NOISE - YOU ARE NOT GOING CRAZY

I am reviewing this completely from an audible perspective. How on Earth this became the final product for such a great book is astounding. There are background noises. I kept thinking that my blue tooth headphones were picking up conversations from the house next door or something. It's only distracting a little and I would hate for someone not to listen to this great book because of it, but I wanted to share because it's very unsettling and my unwavering belief that audible would never endorse such a copy kept me wondering where the sound was coming from and so I kept getting distracted from the material.

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23 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

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.

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    5 out of 5 stars

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.

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1 person found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

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.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

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.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

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.

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