Taking the classical view that the political shapes man's consciousness, Allan Bloom considers Shakespeare as a profoundly political Renaissance dramatist. He aims to recover Shakespeare's ideas and beliefs and to make his work once again a recognized source for the serious study of moral and political problems.
In essays looking at "Julius Caesar, Othello, " and "The Merchant of Venice, " Bloom shows how Shakespeare presents a picture of man that does not assume privileged access for only literary criticism. With this claim, he argues that political philosophy offers a comprehensive...

This excellent translation makes available a classic work central to one of the most interesting controversies of the eighteenth century: the quarrel between Rousseau and Voltaire. Besides containing some of the most sensitive literary criticism ever written (especially of Moliere), the book is an excellent introduction to the principles of classical political thought. It demonstrates the paradoxes of Rousseau's though and clearly displays the temperament that led him to repudiate the hopes of the Enlightenment."

The brilliant, controversial, bestselling critique of American culture that "hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy" (The New York Times)--now featuring a new afterword by Andrew Ferguson in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition.

THE BRILLIANT AND CONTROVERSIAL CRITIQUE OF AMERICAN CULTURE WITH NEARLY A MILLION COPIES IN PRINT

In 1987, eminent political philosopher Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind, an appraisal of contemporary America that "hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock...