The author of the national bestseller The Closing of the American Mind offers a provocative indictment of the devaluing of love and intimacy in today's culture. Allan Bloom explores the language of love from the Bible to Freud, shedding penetrating light on the true nature of our most basic human connections. "(A) rich mine of a book".--New York Daily News.

Alan Bloom’s new translation of Emile, Rousseau’s masterpiece on the education and training of the young, is the first in more than seventy years. In it, Bloom, whose magnificent translation of Plato’s Republic has been universally hailed as a virtual rediscovery of that timeless text, again brings together the translator’s gift for journeying between two languages and cultures and the philosopher’s perception of the true meaning and significance of the issues being examined in the work. The result is a clear, readable, and highly engrossing text that at the same time offers a wholly new sense of the importance and relevance of Rousseau’s thought to us.In addition to his translation, Bloom provides a brilliant introduction that relates the structure and themes of the book to the vital preoccupation's of our own age, particularly in the field of education, but also more generally to the current concerns about the limits and possibilities of human nature. Thus in this translation Emile, long a classic in the history of Western thought and educational theory, becomes something more: a prescription, fresh and dazzling, for the bringing up of autonomous, responsible—that is, truly democratic—human beings.

Publisher Comments: The Closing of the American Mind, a publishing phenomenon in hardcover, is now a paperback literary event. In this acclaimed number one national best-seller, one of our country's most distinguished political philosophers argues that the social/political crisis of 20th-century America is really an intellectual crisis. Allan Bloom's sweeping analysis is essential to understanding America today. It has fired the imagination of a public ripe for change. Synopsis: The Closing of the American Mind, a publishing phenomenon in hardcover, is now a paperback literary event. In this acclaimed number one national best-seller, one of our country's most distinguished political philosophers argues that the social/political crisis of 20th-century America is really an intellectual crisis. Allan Bloom's sweeping analysis is essential to understanding America today. It has fired the imagination of a public ripe for change. Contents Foreword by Saul Bellow Preface Introduction: Our Virtue PART ONE. STUDENTS The Clean Slate Boob Music Relationships Self-Centeredness Equality Race Sex Separateness Divorce Love Eros PART TWO. NIHILISM, AMERICAN STYLE The German Connection Two Revolutions and Two States of Nature The Serf Creativity Culture Values The Nietzscheanization of the Left or Vice Versa Our Ignorance PART THREE. THE UNIVERSITY From Socrates' Apology to Heidegger's Rektoratsrede Tocqueville on Democratic Intellectual Life The Relation Between Thought and Civil Society The Philosophic Experience The Enlightenment Transformation Swift's Doubts Rousseau's Radicalization and the German University The Sixties The Student and the University Liberal Education The Decomposition of the University The Disciplines Conclusion Index

Plato's "Symposium" - translated here, and with a commentary - is arguably one of the greatest works on the nature of love ever written. It recounts a drinking party following an evening meal, where the guests include Aristophanes, Alcibiades and Socrates. The revellers discuss a variety of topics.

Long regarded as the most accurate rendering of Plato's Republic that has yet been published, this widely acclaimed work is the first strictly literal translation of a timeless classic. This second edition includes a new introduction by Professor Bloom, whose careful translation and interpretation of The Republic was first published in 1968. In addition to the correct text itself there is also a rich and valuable essay--as well as indexes and a glossary of terms--which will better enable the reader to approach the heart of Plato's intention.