Ayn Rand

Alexandra Popoff

Ayn Rand
Format
Hardback
Publisher
Yale University Press
Country
United States
Published
6 August 2024
Pages
264
ISBN
9780300253214

Ayn Rand

Alexandra Popoff

A deeply researched biography of the prominent and divisive writer Ayn Rand, whose pro-capitalist novels and nonfiction have influenced three generations of Americans

Biographer Alexandra Popoff traces the life and creative achievement of Ayn Rand (1905-1982), one of America's most provocative writers and whose best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have enjoyed impressive longevity. Born into a Jewish family in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Rand (then Alisa Rosenbaum) lived through the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Civil War, and the onset of Soviet totalitarian dictatorships-experiences that made her profoundly anticommunist. When in 1926 Rand escaped from Stalinist Russia to realize her talent in America, she was also determined to expose the Communist system.

Through her apprenticeship in Hollywood, where she worked as a scriptwriter, to her first anti-Communist novel, We the Living, Rand doggedly pursued her goal, battling the Soviet belief system, along with its precepts of collectivism and statism. She defended American capitalism, individualism, prosperity, and creativity; her literary heroes were talented high achievers. While Marx had declared war on capitalism and prophesied the triumph of the proletariat, Rand, whose family was dispossessed by the Bolsheviks, glorified the wealth-creator and held the masses in contempt. In Atlas Shrugged, her most controversial novel, she promoted laissez-faire capitalism and the morality of rational self-interest. She envisaged apocalypse in America if it followed the socialist path.

This item is in-stock at 6 shops and will ship in 3-4 days

Our stock data is updated periodically, and availability may change throughout the day for in-demand items. Please call the relevant shop for the most current stock information. Prices are subject to change without notice.

Sign in or become a Readings Member to add this title to a wishlist.