I first encountered Alan Bloom when I studied his translation of Plato‘s Republic in a graduate course on Plato. The translation, and the introductory and closing essays, were masterpieces. I was amazed when I read a few passages from the closing of the American mind. I have been a pop musician for many years, and I knew that his numerous claims about pop music lyrics we’re both false and completely unfootnoted. How could such a careful and creative scholar do such sloppy work when writing for a popular audience? particularly when that author was so incensed about the allegedly sloppy zthinking of popular media?

nevertheless, I continue to work with his translation of Plato. I’ve never encountered a better one.