Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind; CCWV.LIFE

In 1987 Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, a University of Chicago professor's indictment of American higher education, becomes an unlikely bestseller. Bloom argues that relativism, which he calls nihilism American-style, has closed the student soul to the great questions. The book carries the word nihilism into the center of the culture wars, where it remains a term of diagnosis and of accusation.

Tagged: Nihilism

The Event

Date: 1987 (exact)
Era: The Postwar Reckoning; Standard periodization of the nihilist movement and idea
Location: Chicago; today Chicago, Illinois
Traditions: Nihilism
Streams: Nihilism
Key figures: Allan Bloom
Key texts: The Closing of the American Mind

Primary Sources

Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.

Secondary Sources

Crosby, Donald A. The Specter of the Absurd: Sources and Criticisms of Modern Nihilism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
Gillespie, Michael Allen. Nihilism Before Nietzsche. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Nishitani, Keiji. Religion and Nothingness. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
Reginster, Bernard. The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Provenance: HIST-1358; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.