God Machine by Paterson Isabel (79 results)

paperback. Condition: Good. The book may have minor cosmetic wear (i.e. creased spine/cover, scratches, curled corners, folded pages, minor sunburn, minor water damage, minor bent). The book may have some highlights/notes/underlined pages - Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included - Safe and Secure Mailer - No Hassle Return.

Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. The God of the Machine 0.96. Book.

Soft cover. Condition: Fine. 308 pages. Book issued in wraps without dust jacket. Book is in FINE condition. Selling quality books for over 35 years. Signed by Author(s).

hardcover. Condition: Acceptable. Connecting readers with great books since 1972. Used textbooks may not include companion materials such as access codes, etc. May have condition issues including wear and notes/highlighting. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!

Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1.45.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Book does not have dust jacket. Book has mild bumping to corners of cover, a slight slant to spine, and slight toning to edgeblock. otherwise book is in very good condiiton with a clean cover, bright pages, and a solid binding.

Hardcover. Second printing. Octavo, 322 pages. In Good plus condition with a Good dust jacket. Spine is white and orange with black print. Dust jacket has light edge wear, toning to spine. Price unclipped: "$4.95". Boards in grey cloth with black print. Light wear to spine caps and corners. NOTE: Shelved in Netdesk Column P. 1391517. FP New Rockville Stock.

Hardcover. Condition: Fair. Earlier edition; ex-library; No dj.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Missing dust jacket; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1.55.

Decorated hard cover. Second edition. Important reference work. Very scarce in this condition. Fine copy in fine (lightly faded) dust jacket (in mylar).

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 2nd printing. Tight copy in lightly sunned dust jacket which is now in protective mylar. 322pp.

Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Missing dust jacket; Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1.05.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. Paterson, along with Ayn Rand ("The Fountainhead") and Rose Wilder Lane ("The Discovery of Freedom"), is known as one of the three founding mothers of modern American Libertarianism, each for a masterpiece published in 1943. Laid in to this (jacketless) first printing (the "copyright edition") is a five-page typed letter, on stationery of the "Books" section of the New York Herald Tribune, to aviator, author and journalist Wolfgang Langewiesche, signed in pencil by author Paterson. She had sent the aviator a review copy, hoping his practical knowledge of aviation would allow him to comment on her comparison of human liberty and the human use of power in practical matters of aviation; she here responds to his reply. Langewiesche had written "I think that there is still hope for personal liberty in America; whereas you think that there is not." She replies "I am perfectly convinced that there is no hope what ever now of averting and enormous internal convulsion - in two words, civil war - in the near future. . . . Furthermore, the democratic process can do nothing else but produce a tyranny of that type. It always did, does, and will; it must, by physical laws which are unalterable." 292 pp. Reduced from $3,850. Signed by Author(s).

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. hardback book and dust jacket in very good condition,dj is unclipped [$4.95],1964 reprint of the original published in 1943,book store stamp on title page.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good+. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. 322 p. 21.5 cm. First printing from this publisher of a work originally published in 1943. Sound and square binding in gray, cloth-covered boards with black stamped titles. Two bottom fore-corners are bumped and two top fore-corners a little soft, but still sharp. Crinkle mark across the top edge of the spine. Gift inscription on the front free endpaper. Otherwise, the inside pages are clean and unmarked, with one tiny dog-eared corner. The dustjacket has wear to the spine ends and corners and less so along the edges, including some chips and tiny tears. The spine and the orange on the front panel are heavily faded. (see photos). It has some light soiling on both panels. Not price clipped. A work of political philosophy, considered to be one of the foundation texts of American libertarianism. The author, Isabel Paterson, is thought to be as important to the libertarian movement as either Ayn Rand (who gave this book a positive review) or Rose Wilder Lane. The book has a gift inscription to Sherwood Sugden from Kenneth Paul Shorey, former cultural critic for the Birmingham (Alabama) News. In the inscription, Shorrey mentions that Russell Kirk was profoundly influenced by the book. Shorrey was once an assistant editor for Kirk's liberal arts journal "The University Bookman", and Kirk, a political theorist and proponent of traditional conservatism, corresponded regularly with Isabel Paterson. The recipient of this book, Sherwood Sudgen was also in the publishing industry and formed Sherwood Sugden and Company, which reprinted philosophical works, including some of Kirk's. The book ended up in Canada, the birthplace of both Paterson and Sugden, with Sugden having returned to Toronto in his later life and passing away in 2011. Overall, an interesting association copy from a circle of ultra-conservative U.S. thought.

Hardcover. Condition: As New. 1st Edition. "The God of the Machine is an invaluable arsenal of intellectual ammunition for any advocate of capitalism," writes Ayn Rand in her Introduction, its first appearance in book form. Rand's review, originally published in her first monthly, The Objectivist Newsletter, October, 1964, is here bound with Paterson's masterpiece for the first time. A fine, seemingly unread copy, with NO WRITINGS or MARKINGS of any kind. Issued without jacket. "They [Rand and Paterson] make all of us male writers look like Confederate money" wrote the curmudgeonly cultural critic Albert Jay Nock in 1943. Belongs in every library of free enterprise. Book #Pv5b110. $250. We specialize in Rare Ayn Rand, and other Legends and Landmarks.

First Edition. Paterson's exploration of the connection between the political system of the United States and its economic achievements over a relatively short national history. This book, along with Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" and Rose Wilder Lane's "The Discovery of Freedom"--all published in 1943--form the backbone of modern libertarian thought. Scarce in the dust jacket, especially in condition this good. Near fine in a very good dust jacket. Bound in rust-colored cloth over boards with light blue spine blocking and blue topstain. Some spotting to topstain. Shallow bumps to fore corners of upper board, shallow bumping along spine ends. Spine titling pleasingly bold. Neat prior ownership label on front pastedown. Dust jacket has a 3/4" chip at top fore corner of rear panel, a closed tear at top of upper joint fold, shallow edge chipping along heel of spine, and other minor wear. Original price on jacket remains intact. A nicely preserved example. Cloth over boards. Octavo. [viii], 292 pages.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Signed and inscribed by Isabel Paterson, "at the request of Ayn Rand." First Edition of Isabel Paterson's The God of the Machine (New York, Putnam, 1943). A very good Association Copy in original unclipped jacket, likely inscribed pre-publication. 1943--The world is at war, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan occupy much of Europe and Asia, and the tentacles of Roosevelt's New Deal hasten and intensify the trend toward an ever-expanding, powerful centralized government. As Roosevelt had declared, the function of individuals is "to serve that Government, and that fundamentally a great and strong group of central institutions, guided by a small group of able and public spirited citizens, could best direct all Government" (Campaign Address on Progressive Government at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, California). Yet in that same year, the appearance of three books by three women, "Freedom's Furies," dared to defy the authoritarian tide and forever changed the course of American political thought. Only one was a novel, "a hymn to individualism" and became a blockbuster: Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. The other two eventually went out of print but were reissued by different publishers decades later: Rose Wilder Lane's The Discovery of Freedom and Isabel Paterson's The God of the Machine. "The God of the Machine is the greatest book written in the last three hundred years. It is the first complete statement of the philosophy of individualism as a political and economic system. It is the basic document of capitalism" (Ayn Rand, letter to Paterson's publisher, 1943). Before Paterson authored her magnum opus, she had been the literary critic for the New York Herald Tribune, (her satire so biting, she struck fear in many authors, including John O'Hara), secretary to Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, a pioneer aviator, and a novelist. (After she retired, doggedly independent Paterson notoriously did not claim any social security and, purportedly, kept her social security card in its original, unopened envelope, marked "Social Security Swindle." Love to get my hands on that!) But it was in The God of the Machine, "an invaluable arsenal of intellectual ammunition for any advocate of capitalism" (Rand, Introduction to The God of the Machine, 1983), that Paterson concludes with these highly celebrated words, never forgotten: "Whoever is fortunate enough to be an American citizen came into the greatest inheritance man has ever enjoyed. He has had the benefit of every heroic and intellectual effort men have made for many thousands of years, realized at last." A monumental copy, linking two of the leading thinkers of the Twentieth Century, and a practical exponent of both of them. First edition, review copy, inscribed by the author on front flyleaf: "To DeWitt M. Emery at the request of Ayn Rand with pleasure Isabel Paterson." The recipient, DeWitt Emery, was founder of the National Small Business Men's Association, and a friend/correspondent of both Rand and Paterson. Ex-libris of DeWitt M. Emery to front pastedown. Octavo. Original red cloth, spine lettered on a pale blue ground. With original, unclipped dust jacket. Printed Review copy slip loosely inserted. Spine ends and corners lightly rubbed. Dust jacket chipped along folds, with some tape repairs to verso, ring mark from a glass or bottle to front panel, short tear to front panel with tape repair to verso; a very good copy. Accompanying the book is the 1983 reissue of The God of the Machine, with Ayn Rand's 1964 review as the Introduction. Book #Bv2403. $7500. First edition copies of all three 1943 books by "Freedom's Furies" available. Signed by Author(s).

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. "The God of the Machine," wrote Ayn Rand in 1943, "is the greatest book written in the last three hundred years, a document that could literally save the world" (Letters of Ayn Rand, 102). First edition, first printing of Isabel Paterson's The God of the Machine (New York: Putnam, 1943), the work that enrolled Paterson beside Madison and Hayek and Friedman and Rand. "One of the few original theories of history that have been developed in America today, it appears prophetic" (Cox, Introduction to 1993 edition, ix-x). During the 30s, Paterson would lead discussions with a group of young "conservatives" who would stay at the Herald Tribune, for which Paterson wrote a daily column, late into the evenings, helping to paste up the Books section. One of these was a fledgling author by the name of Ayn Rand. Paterson would later use her column to promote Rand s work, and Rand would reciprocate by recommending Paterson s books to her own acquaintances. Indeed Rand was instrumental in promoting Paterson's masterpiece when it was reissued by Caxton in 1964, calling it "an invaluable arsenal of intellectual ammunition for any advocate of capitalism" (The Objectivist Newsletter, Oct. 1964). A near-fine copy in a carefully preserved clipped jacket with some edgewear at corners and folds. Book #vC2321. $2950. We specialize in Rare Ayn Rand and other legends and landmarks.

First edition, first printing, of the author's best-known work, a seminal text of American libertarianism. A leading Canadian-American journalist and esteemed literary critic, Paterson (1886-1961) is credited as one of the "three furies" of the American libertarian movement alongside Ayn Rand and Rose Wilder Lane (William F. Buckley Jr. quoted by Burns, p. 746). In a lengthy and strongly-worded letter to Earle H. Balch, an editor at G. P. Putnam's Sons, Rand stressed the importance of Paterson's book and advised in great detail the best methods of publicizing its release, arguing that "The God of the Machine is a document that could literally save the world - if enough people knew of it and read it. [It] does for capitalism what the Bible did for Christianity - and, forgive the comparison, what Das Kapital did for Communism or Mein Kampf for Nazism. It takes a book to save or destroy the world" (28 November 1943). The God of the Machine was published in the same year as Rand's The Fountainhead. Laid into this copy are clippings of five newspaper columns titled "Libertarian" by the American lawyer and politician Roger Lea MacBride (1929-1995). MacBride was a close family friend of Rose Wilder Lane; he described himself as her adopted grandson and Lane called him her "political disciple". He was the executor of and sole heir to her estate. Pasted onto the rear pastedown is an article from the Wall Street Journal dated in manuscript 14 May 1943. Written by Thomas F. Woodlock, it is headed "Thinking it Over", and reviews The God of the Machine, which he describes as "as uncompromising an attack on the whole notion of 'planned economic collectivism' as anyone could wish. She deals in no euphemisms, no qualifications, no compromise, no concessions, gives no quarter and asks none". Michael S. Berliner, ed., Letters of Ayn Rand, 1997; Jennifer Burns, "The Three 'Furies' of Libertarianism: Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand", Journal of American History, vol. 102, issue 3, Dec. 2015, pp. 746-74. Octavo. Original orange cloth, spine lettered and blocked in blue, top edge blue, fore edge untrimmed. With dust jacket, some of which supplied in expert facsimile. Later ownership signature on front free endpaper dated 1961, earlier date "5/18/43" pencilled below, a few pieces of ephemera laid in, including newspaper clippings (with resulting offset) and typed note between pp. 226-7 about public spending in politics, further newspaper clipping adhered to rear pastedown with facing pencil commentary (see main note). Spine ends and corners lightly rubbed, ends bumped with a few tiny nicks at foot, cloth bright and unmarked; contents similarly bright, with scattered neat pencil annotations and marginal marks. Jacket price-clipped, spine panel sunned, professionally restored with loss to extremities and to front panel (including part of author's name and quotation in lower margin) supplied in facsimile. A very good copy in a carefully preserved example of the striking jacket.