(，~ A P T~ @
n the fall of 1987 I joined the staffof The New York Times I
Magazine. Within a week of my arrival， a senior editor
showed up from the third-floor newsroom to suggest that
we do a story on Allan Bloom， a philosophy professor at
the University of Chicago whose book The Closing of the
American Mind had been at the top of the bestseller list for I
months. By the end of that year， it had sold close to a half-
million copies. Bloom was America s latest intellectual celeb-
r!ty: He was interviewed in Time magazine and seen on televi-
sion talk shows. He was also a millionaire， no doubt a rarity
among the prestigious members of the Committee on Social
Thought.
No one can predict the p bhc s taste. But The Closing ~fthe
n
American Mind has turned out to be more than one of those
curious American phenomena， a book that captures a moment
and acquires fleeting intellectual cachet， like Christopher
Lasch s The Culture of Narcissism or Charles Reich s The Green-
ing of America. Written， its author claimed， to please a few
friends， Bloom s book was， and still is， a major event in A meri-
canlife Three years after its publication， both the book and its
author remain objects of intense debate. Bloom was the focus at
a symposium entitled \"The Humanities and the Question of
Values in Education\" held at Yale in the spring of 11989. His
presence also dominated a conference at Skidmore College
sponsored by Salmagundi， perhaps the country s leadingjour-
nal ~fintellectual opinion. On college bulletin boards around
the cou try， lie s frequez]tly at ounced as a featured speaker.
Whether ornot The Closmgeo，;hn n
Ammcan Mind will eventually\" \" i
turn outtobe an~ther ~fthose halt-read bestsellers that plucks
! momentary nerve， materializes fashionably on coffee tables，
1~ rarely read all the w
tnc hJstorial~ A，-d o-y through， and is soon forgotten \" ~ I
|
内容加载中，请稍后...
商品评论（0条）