Over the past two years, critics have been calling U.S. higher education to account for everything from inflated tuitions to deflated black-faculty representation. Now a crusty philosopher at the University of Chicago argues that the problem is more fundamental -- and more dire -- than anybody has yet imagined. In his provocative new book, The Closing of the American Mind (Simon & Schuster; $18.95), Allan Bloom, known mainly for his translations of Plato and Rousseau, makes the charge that American universities have abandoned their principles and their purpose. "These great universities," writes Bloom, "which can split the atom, find cures for...
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