The Ideas of Ayn Rand

by Ronald E. Merrill

The Ideas of Ayn Rand tells of Ayn Rand (1905-1982), who is best-known for her blockbuster novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. In the 1960s her Objectivist ideas, featuring laissez-faire capitalism, atheism, the virtue of selfishness, and aesthetic romanticism, were promoted in an organized movement, which split apart following Rand's falling-out with protege Nathaniel Branden. Despite this debacle, she continues to attract readers and to...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812691571
• ISBN13: 9780812691573
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Open Court
• Length: 191 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

An excellent overview

While the discussions of the influence of Nietzsche on Rand and the analyses of her novels are interesting, the real strength of this book is the clarification and extension of Rand's ethics. The unification of oughts, operational ought and normative ought are the same, the replacement of Man's Life as ultimate end with Man's Life as ultimate means, and his clarification of the goals of ethics (as making yourself the kind of person you should be, rational, productive, and self-improving) are more than worth the price of the book. He points out the weaknesses and problems with Rand's esthetic theories. Unfortunately, he does not do the same for Rand's epistemology, which has always been the weakest part of her work. The last part of the book deals with her attempts to make a practical difference through politics and the continuing disagreements Objectivists have with libertarianism. The book is also extremely readable and well organized.

An excellent compact overview of Rand's views

Long before she died, Ayn Rand was praised as a goddess, and damned as a devil. In all the fuss, her actual ideas and views were generally shoved to one side, to the point where she said in her _Playboy_ interview that she could sympathize with Karl Marx(!) toward the end of his life, when he said that he was not a Marxist. The rather abrupt end of the organized Objectivist movement in 1968 was also the end of a great deal of her influence, and she became a figure more of legend than history long before her death. With this book, Merrill gives us a view of Ayn Rand's actual beliefs, as opposed to those attributed to her by the Usual Suspects, and some background as to how she came to the conclusions she did. It's disappointingly short, but Rand scholarship is evolving constantly.

Objective Book of Objectivism's founder

Free of the subjective rehashing that tainted the summations offered by Leonard Peikoff and the Brandens, this book is a fair, albeit much too brief, representation of Ayn Rand's history, ideas, and continuing legacy. Merril, a true student of Objectivism, is fair and balanced in his book. It is a mistake to rely solely on the admittedly worthy and remarkable works of Peikoff and/or the Brandens without using this book to reconcile the arguments put forth by the three of them in their own accounts. Read this work and make up your own mind.

Nice book

This is a nice work in independent commentary and interpretation, something Peikovians cannot stand. And yes, the book has useful commentary.