Allan David Bloom (14 September 1930 in Indianapolis, Indiana – 7 October 1992 in Chicago, Illinois) was an American philosopher, classicist, and academic. He studied under David Grene, Leo Strauss, Richard McKeon and Alexandre Kojève. He subsequently taught at Cornell University, the University of Toronto, Yale University, École Normale Supérieure of Paris, and the University of Chicago. Bloom championed the idea of 'Great Books' education. Bloom became famous for his criticism of contemporary American higher education, with his views being expressed in his bestselling 1987 book, The Closing of the American Mind. Although Bloom was characterised as a conservative in the popular media, Bloom explicitly stated that this was a misunderstanding, and made it clear that he was not to be affiliated with any conservative movements. In 2000, years after Bloom's death, the Nobel laureate, Saul Bellow, Bloom's friend and teaching partner at the University of Chicago, wrote a novel based on his colleague entitled Ravelstein.

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