Content / Ayn Rand: the Woman / A new biography of Rand due out in October

A new biography of Rand due out in October

on Tuesday 15 September 2009
by Jennifer Burns

I received the following press release...

GODDESS OF THE MARKET
AYN RAND AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT
By Jennifer Burns
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS | OCTOBER 15, 2009 | ISBN: 9780195324877 | 369 PAGES | $27.95

OXFORD TO PUBLISH POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL NOVELISTS, PHILOSOPHERS AND THINKERS OF MODERN TIMES DRAWING ON UNPRECEDENTED AND UNRESTRICTED ACCESS TO RAND’S PRIVATE PAPERS

"Burns, who is not an objectivist, spent 8 years researching the development of Rand's thinking and principles, and she has produced a terrific book—a serious consideration of Rand's ideas, and her role in the conservative movement of the past three quarters of a century, that is empty of academic jargon and accessible to those unfamiliar with Rand's life or ideas."—The American Thinker

WORSHIPPED BY HER FANS, DENOUNCED BY HER ENEMIES, and forever shadowed by controversy and scandal, the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand was a powerful thinker whose views on government and markets shaped the conservative movement from its earliest days.

Best known as the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, Rand became a bestselling fiction writer as well as an influential non-fiction author whose work continues to pose moral and philosophical questions that enthrall her fans and her critics. She expounded the theory of objectivism (a belief in the existence of an objective reality that makes the pursuit of happiness man's highest moral purpose), in contrast to what she viewed as the socialistic, fuzzy-minded dominant philosophies of the 20th century.

Drawing on unprecedented AND UNRESTRICTED access to Rand’s private papers and the original unedited versions of Rand’s journals, Jennifer Burns offers a groundbreaking reassessment of this key cultural figure, examining her life, her ideas, and her impact on conservative political thought.

Burns' will be the first scholarly treatment of Rand's life. She gives both an account of her career and major published works, as well as an analysis of her reception among diverse audiences, from college students and intellectuals, business people and Republican Party activists, libertarians and conservatives, secularists and Christians. Rand's novels continue to resonate in the marketplace—selling about 200,000 copies annually. But in the last few months, sales of Atlas Shrugged have skyrocketed as a result of the national dialogue about big government and regulatory oversight of business. Rand’s following among the business community, from Alan Greenspan through aspiring capitalists, remains strong, decades after the publication of her major works.

GODDESS OF THE MARKET follows Rand from her childhood in Russia through her meteoric rise from struggling Hollywood screenwriter to best-selling novelist, including her wildly successful The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Burns highlights the two facets of Rand’s work that make her a perennial draw for those on the right: her promotion of capitalism, and her defense of limited government. Both sprang from her early, bitter experience of life under Communism, and became among the most deeply enduring of her messages. The book also traces the development of Rand’s Objectivist philosophy and her relationship with Nathaniel Branden, her closest intellectual partner, with whom she had an explosive falling out in 1968.

This extraordinary book captures the life of the woman who was a tireless champion of capitalism and the freedom of the individual, and whose ideas are still devoured by eager students, debated on blogs, cited by political candidates, and promoted by corporate tycoons.

JENNIFER BURNS is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Virginia. She lives in Charlottesvile, Virginia, and Menlo Park, California.