The Opening of the American Mind [Paperback]

Lawrence W. Levine (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0807031194 | ISBN-13: 978-0807031193 | Publication Date: August 14, 1997 | Edition: 1ST

Publicly greeted as the definitive answer to recent attacks on the university, Lawrence W. Levine's book is a brilliantly argued positive vision of American education and culture.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In 1987 The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom's famously ferocious critique of the corrosive effects of political correctness in American universities, exploded like a bomb in the halls of the academy; even today, its conservative analysis is constantly enlarged upon by academics and political pundits alike, from Dinesh D'Souza to William J. Bennett. In The Opening of the American Mind, Lawrence W. Levine has produced a direct rebuttal. The conservative complainers are, he says, discomfited by perfectly healthy developments in education. Levine argues that opening the academic canon to cultures beyond Western civilization is a natural and laudable outgrowth of the increasing diversity of America. The universities are changing, says Levine, to keep in touch with the real world, and are "doing a more thorough and cosmopolitan job ... than ever before." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Responding to critics of the university as a bastion of PC, historian Levine (Black Culture and Black Consciousness) provides some worthy context. Curricula have always been evolving, he stresses, and historians long ignored non-Western and social history. The university, he adds, has also been evolving; however, his observation that the balkanized campus merely reflects endemic American fragmentation ignores how universities can act to further separatism or integration. Levine is most effective in explaining how the Great Books and Western Civilization courses developed to shape American identity after WWI, and how American literature entered the canon 50 years ago. Many historians, he notes, did not accept the "melting pot" notion and believed that ethnic distinctiveness could be prized; every criticism of integration today has been made before. Levine contends rationally that multicultural studies and "the new historiography" do not cause fragmentation but reflect it. Still, however accurate his argument may be in general, it has a detached air and will not fully engage those who decry campus excesses. 40,000 first printing; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press; 1ST edition (August 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807031194
• ISBN-13: 978-0807031193
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.5 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #332,163 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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108 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Revealing, July 23, 2004

By 

Brett Williams (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Opening of the American Mind (Paperback)

Levine sounds reasoned until the reader asks questions. He notes that at Berkeley the white student population declined from 68% in 1974 to 37% in 1994 while 75% of America was white at that time. Assuming all is equal, which of course it isn't, one would expect equal representation by demographic percentage. The obvious question is, if America were 75% white in 1994 why would only 37% be admitted to Berkeley? Could whites be disadvantaged, incapable of passing Berkeley's rigorous standards, or because Berkeley practices racist admission policies? Levine writes this "is more representative of the nation's population" but as it fails numerically the reader is left to wonder in what way it is more representative? He adds that Berkeley became the first major university with a majority of minority students, revealing early his emphasis on race, not education and his philosophy, as expanded on by Arthur M. Schlesinger's "Disuniting Of America".

Levine's book is a response to Alan Bloom's critique of modern American university education in "The Closing Of The American Mind" and that of a multitude of others throughout Western civilization in academia and out. Bloom is at times recklessly and conveniently misrepresented while at others accurate enough to cause wonder at what Levine could possibly disagree with? Levine paints Bloom as anti-multiculturalist. However, as Bloom notes, Herodotus was a multiculturalist too as we should be, but with a different intent than now practiced, rather to learn what was unknown about the human condition, not to return from his travels to dismantle his homeland by removing Greek (Western) thinking as a "bias" suppressive of others, which is Levine's position repeated throughout the book, generally between the lines.

Levine characterizes criticism of our university system and its politics as "conservative" because, in Foucaultian form, it focuses on who said it, not what they say or if it might be true. No debate. Yet Levine swears by open-mindedness - as long as it does not clash with his agenda and that of our university administrators. Using out-of-context sound bites Levine relishes remarks by his critics as crazy eyed, apocalyptic non-sense, lumping all into the same bucket - though many would vehemently clash on details of their opposition. Never is there a hearing on recorded events and practice on campus from which these criticisms are sourced. We can only assume their root as Levine focuses on change as a constant at the university through history, so we suppose change is the problem for conservatives. But course offerings in LP-record scratching as musical expression at Levine's very Berkeley causes one to wonder just what higher education has become? Where once the mundane banality of history was taught, but a history taught from the standpoint of events and civilizations not from the perspective of groups, which he prefers. If the current university anti-West, race-focused dogma is not apocalyptic for institutions once concerned more for education than diversity, what is?

Levine marginalizes opposition by the oft-used method of obfuscation. Issues are just too complicated, vast, impenetrable, given such mixture, morphing attitudes or flux of opinions in the marketplace of ideas to make a conclusion. That "conclusion" is happy news for Levine as it is self-serving keeping his dogma in place and in power. Practicing a Creationist favorite, Levine puts words in the mouth of his critic's then tells how wrong they are. "It surely was much simpler when the university community was a homogeneous one..." A statement critics would agree with but not condone nor dare make against the muscle of today's climate of political correctness.

Levine smacks of anti-West creed throughout, dismissing with a sneer those who could possibly claim "the West is good", as though only naive fools would utter such "myth" and "propaganda". Levine's book is readable, though not the penetrating, elevating work Bloom offered. Levine does reveal what his side of our politicized universities stand for and against and in that his text has value as a measure of how bad things are.

55 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars maybe he's right, November 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Opening of the American Mind (Paperback)

Why has no one provided a good rebuttle to Bloom? This is the best I've seen, and it's not very strong. Sure, it's slick and full of grand academic watchwords. But it smacks of the blind veneer of today's academia, full of a baseless hope in ideologies that are D.O.A.. I had to read Bloom's book about 3 years ago as part of a course, and I read it with many doubts. But having graduated, now reflecting on my own experience and the sad ineffectual responses to "Closing", I am starting to think that maybe Bloom was right: Our universities are in trouble, and Levine, by trying to say otherwise, only proves it to be the case.

67 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An unengaging anti-polemic, November 10, 2001

By 

S. Greenhouse - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Opening of the American Mind (Paperback)

It is amazing how Levine starts his book with an equivocating tirade. He is audacious and generous enough to offer a list of well written critiques of the intellectual establishment, but then he goes on citing the most conservative members of the political establishment. Why? The answer is obvious: He wants the innocent reader to believe that all the authors of the well-reasoned critiques he so loathes are nothing but narrow-minded political right-wingers--thus confounding Allen Bloom with Buchanan. This is simply outrageous. Levine does what is so typical of his ilk--he politicizes. Thus he does exactly that what he accuses the others of doing-but don't do.

This book is enlightening only in so far as it may serve as an example of the kind of thinking responsible for the plight of the humanities today. Levine simply fails-or, what would be worse-willingly fails to understand his opponents. He does not meet with their arguments. Levine, in the manner so typical of contemporary intellectuals, leaches onto the intellectually superior Allen Bloom as he inverts the title of Bloom's book. He thus reveals both the resentment and the very lack of insight among those who house academia today.