Editing Allan Bloom (section)

==Early life and education==
Bloom was born in [[Indianapolis|Indianapolis, Indiana]], to [[Second-generation immigrants in the United States|second-generation]] Jewish parents who were both [[social work]]ers. The couple had a daughter, Lucille, two years earlier. As a thirteen-year-old, Bloom read a ''[[Reader's Digest]]'' article about the University of Chicago and told his parents he wanted to attend; his parents thought it was unreasonable and did not encourage his hopes.<ref name= atlas>Atlas, James. "Chicago's Grumpy Guru: Best-Selling Professor Allan Bloom and the Chicago Intellectuals." ''New York Times Magazine''.  January 3, 1988. 12.</ref>  Yet, when his family moved to Chicago in 1944, his parents met a [[psychiatrist]] and family friend whose son was enrolled in the University of Chicago's [[humanities]] program for gifted students. In 1946, Bloom was accepted to the same program, starting his degree at the age of fifteen, and spending the next decade of his life enrolled at the university in Chicago's [[Hyde Park, Chicago|Hyde Park]] neighborhood.<ref name= atlas/> This began his lifelong passion for the 'idea' of the university.<ref>Bloom, Allan (1987). ''The Closing of the American Mind'', p. 243. New York: Simon & Schuster</ref>

In the preface to ''Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960–1990'', he stated that his education "began with [[Freud]] and ended with [[Plato]]". The theme of this education was self-knowledge, or self-discovery—an idea that Bloom would later write, seemed impossible to conceive of for a Midwestern American boy. He credits Leo Strauss as the teacher who made this endeavor possible for him.<ref>Bloom, Allan. 1991.  ''Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960–1990'', p. 11. New York: Touchstone Books</ref>

Bloom graduated from the University of Chicago with a [[bachelor's degree]] at the age of 18.<ref name="independent.co.uk">Botsworth, Keith. [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-professor-allan-bloom-1556931.html  'Obituary: Professor Allan Bloom', ''The Independent'', October 12, 1992] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170825233908/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-professor-allan-bloom-1556931.html |date=August 25, 2017 }}.</ref> One of his college classmates was the classicist [[Seth Benardete]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://contemporarythinkers.org/allan-bloom/biography/ | title=Biography | access-date=2015-10-05 | archive-date=2015-10-07 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151007051749/http://contemporarythinkers.org/allan-bloom/biography/ | url-status=live }}</ref> For post-graduate studies, he enrolled in the University of Chicago's [[Committee on Social Thought]], where he was assigned classicist David Grene as tutor. Bloom went on to write his thesis on [[Isocrates]]. Grene recalled Bloom as an energetic and humorous student completely dedicated to studying classics, but with no definite career ambitions.<ref name=atlas/> The committee was a unique [[interdisciplinary]] program that attracted a small number of students due to its rigorous academic requirements and lack of clear employment opportunities after graduation.<ref name=atlas/> Bloom earned his Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought in 1955. He subsequently studied under the influential [[Hegelian]] philosopher Alexandre Kojève in [[Paris]], whose lectures Bloom would later introduce to the English-speaking world. While teaching philosophy at the {{Lang|fr|[[École normale supérieure]]|italic=no}} in Paris, he befriended [[Raymond Aron]], amongst many other philosophers. Among the American expatriate community in Paris, his friends included writer [[Susan Sontag]].<ref>E. Field, ''The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag'', Wisconsin, 2005, pp. 158–70.</ref><ref>C. Rollyson and L. Paddock, ''Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon'', W. W. Norton, 2000, pp. 45–50.</ref><ref>''Reborn: Journals and Notebooks 1947–1963'', ed. D. Rieff, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008, pp. 188–89.</ref>