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. Drawing on unprecedented
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. Goddess of the Market follows Rand
from her childhood in Russia through her meteoric rise from struggling
Hollywood screenwriter to bestselling novelist, including the writing of
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, attracting a diverse audience of college students and
intellectuals, business people and Republican Party activists,
libertarians and conservatives. 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.
