Allan Bloom (September 14, 1930 – October 7, 1992) was an American philosopher, classicist, and political theorist, best known as a professor at the University of Chicago and the author of the 1987 bestseller The Closing of the American Mind. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Jewish parents, he was a child prodigy who entered the University of Chicago at age 15 to study classics and philosophy. He earned a B.A. in 1950 and a Ph.D. in 1955, studying under David Grene, Leo Strauss (of whom he was a disciple), and Richard McKeon, and he also studied with Alexandre Kojève in Paris.

Bloom held teaching positions at Cornell University—where he was involved in a 1969 student uprising—and at the University of Toronto, Tel Aviv University, Yale University, the École Normale Supérieure, and the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, where he served as a professor. He achieved national prominence with The Closing of the American Mind, a neoconservative critique of relativism, multiculturalism, and modern liberal education, and he mentored a generation of neoconservative intellectuals, including Paul Wolfowitz and Charles Fairbanks Jr. Bloom was also renowned for his translations of Plato, Rousseau, and other philosophers. Openly gay, his personal life is reflected in Saul Bellow's roman à clef Ravelstein. He died in Chicago in 1992 from AIDS-related complications.