Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom

Published in 1987 "The Closing of the American Mind" created a ruckus. It spoke of liberal political correctness and clearly illustrated how it attempts to shut off discussion of every issue that runs counter to its tenets.

Political correctness and its stifling effects were not truly understood until Alan Bloom put his mind to the subject. This University of Chicago professor smoked cigars and punctuated his sentences with gesticulations in his classroom lectures on philosophy. In the midst of the political correctness of campus life he saw a developing crisis in American higher education where classical western thought was shunned; untenable and untried leftist philosophies were manufactured and propounded in their place.

"The closing of the American Mind" was viciously attacked by academe, but it served to enlighten the truly thoughtful to trends that could ultimately send America socially and economically into a tailspin. It is still a timely read and any student of American thought should apply himself to its pages. Alan Bloom understood that western philosophy had been built up over thousands of years and had successfully brought man to a bright future. He reminded us that long "dead white men" actually do have something to say to us in the "post-modern" age.