By Allan Bloom: THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND

How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students. The author says, "More than anything else, this book is to be taken as a report from the front. The reader can judge for himself the gravity of our situation. Every age has its problems, and I do not claim that things were wonderful in the past. I am describing our present situation and do not intend any comparison with the past to be used as grounds for congratulations or blaming ourselves but only for the sake of clarifying what counts for us and what is special in our situation."