Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 073913194X ISBN 13: 9780739131947

Publisher: Lexington Books, 2009

Synopsis

Readers and students of Ayn Rand will value seeing in this collection of interviews how Ayn Rand applied her philosophy and moral principles to the issues of the day. Objectively Speaking includes half a century of print and broadcast interviews drawn from the Ayn Rand Archives. The thirty-two interviews in this collection, edited by Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz, include print interviews from the 1930s and edited transcripts of radio and television interviews from the 1940s through 1981. Selections are included from a remarkable series of radio broadcasts over a four-year period (1962-1966) on Columbia University's station WKCR in New York City and syndicated throughout the United States and Canada.

Ayn Rand's unusual and strikingly original insights on a vast range of topics are captured by prominent interviewers in the history of American television broadcasting, such as Johnny Carson, Edwin Newman, Mike Wallace, and Louis Rukeyser. The collection concludes with an interview of Dr. Leonard Peikoff on his radio program in 1999, recalling his 30-year personal and professional association with Ayn Rand and discussing her unique intellectual and literary achievements.

Ayn Rand is the best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Anthem, and We the Living. Fifty years or more after publication, sales of these novels continue to increase.

About this title

About the Author

PETER SCHWARTZ is retired Chairman of the Board of Directors, and currently a Distinguished Fellow, of the Ayn Rand Institute―the pre-eminent organization for the dissemination of Ayn Rand’s ideas. Schwartz is the founding editor and publisher of The Intellectual Activist (1979-1991). He is often interviewed on radio and TV, by such personalities as Geraldo Rivera and Thom Hartmann. He lives in Danbury, CT.

Reviews

Author and philosopher Rand was generally reluctant to grant interviews because she thought they didn’t provide enough time and leeway to explain her philosophy of objectivism, that “reality exists as an objective absolute” that can be perceived through reason. After the success of The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), Rand did go on to grant several interviews. This collection of 32 print interviews and transcripts of radio and television interviews from the 1940s until 1981 offers a fascinating conversation on objectivism, though Rand herself continually refers to her novels for a more in-depth perspective. Part 1 of this collection includes Rand’s first-known interview at age 27 and focuses on her life as a Russian immigrant; part 2 features interviews at Columbia University from 1962 to 1966; part 3 features several televised interviews, including talks with Mike Wallace in 1959 and Rand’s last public appearance in an interview with Louis Rukeyser in 1981. Given her influence on American culture, including the thinking of former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, readers will find this a particularly topical review of Rand’s highly individualistic philosophy. --Vanessa Bush

Edition details

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 073913194X
• ISBN 13: 9780739131947
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 282
• Editor: Podritske Marlene, Schwartz Peter