Provocative in it's time, but now mostly reads as bitter and sad. Not a particularly relevant study of today's academia, but this work has some value in understanding the underpinning of many conservative talking points. ( )

Relevant to the current campus climate. ( )

Utter rubbish. Did any of the predictions come true? His conclusions are already outdated. An old fart pining for the "good ol' days." A 19th century education is no longer relevant. The good old days were merely old not necessarily any better, and by definition half the people in the world are always going to be below average.

If Bloom had his way only the elite would ever be allowed to rule, something we see all too frequently is a disaster. ( )

I have waited years and years to read this. I knew there was good stuff in here, but now that I finally made time for it, I wasn't as excited to read about it now. Still, it was a provocative, intriguing, and historical read.

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Published in the late 80s, Allan Bloom wrote a scathing and disappointing report about the decline of reason and rise of relativism in the American university system. He blamed the 1960s for the change. You think?

Bloom argued for a return to the Great Books in education, which help us to think about the ideas that matter: is there truth, freedom, and a God? -- something young people crave to know, but now never find out in higher learning because everything is relative.
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A few final (truncated) quotes:

"A good program of liberal education feeds the student's love of truth and passion to live a good life."

"The only serious solution is the one that is universally rejected: the good old Great Books approach, in which liberal education means reading classic texts, letting them dictate what the questions are and the method of approaching them,...trying to read them as their authors wished them to be read." ( )