Most Popular Books by Allan Bloom

The brilliant, controversial, bestselling critique of American culture that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times)—now 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 “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (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 Bloom’s argument caused such a furor at publication and why our culture so deeply resists its truths today.

Plato, Allan Bloom wrote, is "the most erotic of philosophers," and his Symposium is one of the greatest works on the nature of love ever written. This new edition brings together the English translation of the renowned Plato scholar and translator, Seth Benardete, with two illuminating commentaries on it: Benardete''s "On Plato''s Symposium" and Allan Bloom''s provocative essay, "The Ladder of Love." In the Symposium, Plato recounts a drinking party following an evening meal, where the guests include the poet Aristophanes, the drunken Alcibiades, and, of course, the wise Socrates. The revelers give their views on the timeless topics of love and desire, all the while addressing many of the major themes of Platonic philosophy: the relationship of philosophy and poetry, the good, and the beautiful.

"Written with the erudition and wit that made The Closing of the American Mind a #1 best-seller, Love and Friendship is a searching examination of the basic human connections at the center of the greatest works of literature and philosophy throughout the ages." "In a spirited polemic directed at our contemporary culture, Allan Bloom argues that we live in a world where love and friendship are withering away. Science and moralism have reduced eros to sex. Individualism and egalitarianism have turned romantic relationships into contractual matters to be litigated. Survey research has made every variety of sexual behavior seem normal, and thus boring. In sex education classes, children learn how to use condoms, but not how to deal with the hopes and risks of intimacy. We no longer know how to talk and think about the peril and promise of attraction and fidelity." "What has been lost is what separates human beings from beasts - the power of the imagination, which can transform sex into eros. Our impoverished feelings are rooted in our impoverished language of love. To recover the danger, the strength, and the beauty of eros, we must study the great literature of love, in the hope of rekindling the imagination of beauty and virtue that fuels eros. We must love to learn, in order to learn to love again." "Like The Closing of the American Mind, this is an exhilarating journey of ideas in search of the truths that great writers and philosophers have offered about our most precious and perilous longings. Love and Friendship dissects Rousseau''s invention of Romantic love, meant to provide a new basis for human connection, amid the atomism of bourgeois society, and exposes the reasons for its ultimate failure. Bloom tells of the Romantics'' idea of the sublime and Freud''s theory of sublimation. He takes us into the universe of Shakespeare''s plays, where love is a natural phenomenon that gives rise to both the brightest hopes and the bitterest conflicts and disappointments. Finally, Bloom offers a fresh reading of the greatest work on eros, Plato''s Symposium." "A profound analysis of the literature of eros from the Bible to Freud, Love and Friendship is a powerful book that will inspire as well as outrage, amuse as well as illuminate. The culmination of a lifetime spent thinking and writing about the most fundamental questions facing human beings, it will change forever how we think about our most personal relationships and our most intimate dreams and desires."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Taking the classical view that the political shapes man''s consciousness, Allan Bloom considers Shakespeare as a profoundly political Renaissance dramatist. He aims to recover Shakespeare''s ideas and beliefs and to make his work once again a recognized source for the serious study of moral and political problems. In essays looking at Julius Caesar, Othello, and The Merchant of Venice, Bloom shows how Shakespeare presents a picture of man that does not assume privileged access for only literary criticism. With this claim, he argues that political philosophy offers a comprehensive framework within which the problems of the Shakespearean heroes can be viewed. In short, he argues that Shakespeare was an eminently political author. Also included is an essay by Harry V. Jaffa on the limits of politics in King Lear. "A very good book indeed . . . one which can be recommended to all who are interested in Shakespeare." —G. P. V. Akrigg "This series of essays reminded me of the scope and depth of Shakespeare''s original vision. One is left with the impression that Shakespeare really had figured out the answers to some important questions many of us no longer even know to ask."-Peter A. Thiel, CEO, PayPal, Wall Street Journal Allan Bloom was the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor on the Committee on Social Thought and the co-director of the John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy at the University of Chicago. Harry V. Jaffa is professor emeritus at Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate School.

In particular, we see the full variety of erotic connections, from the "star-crossed" devotions of Romeo and Juliet to the failed romance of Troilus and Cressida to the problematic friendship of Falstaff and Hal.".

Giants and dwarfs : Essays 1960-1990.

Il semble clair que Shakespeare a véritablement et consciemment conçu ses oeuvres comme les vecteurs de sa sagesse politique — ses pièces historiques en fournissent la preuve. Shakespeare a cherché à y développer un point de vue raisonnable sur la nature du régime anglais et sur la façon dont il devait être accepté et révéré par les générations ultérieures d’Anglais. Il a réussi dans son entreprise, car les Anglais, à bien des égards, comprennent véritablement leur histoire de la façon dont il l’a dépeinte. Sur ce point, son dessein était clairement politique. C’est en se référant d’abord aux préoccupations de la société civile qu’il a compris ce qui pouvait éblouir et passionner son public. Est-il vraisemblable que ce ne fût là rien de plus qu’une série d’histoires bonnes pour le théâtre ? Peut-on raisonnablement prétendre que Shakespeare s’est jeté précipitamment dans la composition de pièces historiques parce qu’il avait besoin d’argent, ou encore qu’il ignorait les faits les plus importants de l’histoire anglaise parce qu’il n’avait jamais fait d’études ? Ce serait comme dire que Jefferson, sans s’intéresser vraiment aux principes politiques, a écrit la Déclaration d’indépendance parce qu’il voulait être célèbre, et que le succès de cette déclaration tient au fait qu’elle fournit un excellent discours de 4 juillet...

Siguiendo los consejos de Jonathan Swift de mirar el mundo alternativamente desde la posición de enanos y de gigantes, Allan Bloom se acerca a la tradición filosófica occidental, no para aparecer más grande sobre los hombres de los gigantes del pensamiento, sino para juzgar nuestras flaquezas desde su altura. Se trata de un ejercicio de lúcida humildad que permite cultivar una profunda amistad con los autores del pasado y renovar la vigencia de sus ideas para la vida sociocultural actual. El amigo es la persona con la que Sócrates puede conversar sobre el interés común que ambos tienen por lo que es bueno. ... Y aquí llegamos al foco de lo que nos importa; la conciencia de un interés compartido y el alimento para éste proceden de libros escritos por sabios del pasado. ... Cuando uno ha frecuentado a Platón, a Maquiavelo y a Shakespeare es muy difícil que tome con seriedad lo que están diciendo hoy los representantes de las humanidades en nuestras universidades.

This is Thomas Taylor''s adept translation of Plato''s Republic. Plato''s "crowning achievement of art and philosophy." "The idea that runs through the Republic is that the individual presents almost the same features and qualties as society, on a smaller scale, and in his argument Plato first considers the state and thence makes his deductions as to the individual." "Besides the enduring value of the Republic as a work of art, its philosophical and ethical teaching is of particular interest in the present disordered condition of social and speculative ideas. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

书名原文:The closing of the American mind