Ayn Rand : writing a gospel of success / Alexandra Popoff.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Popoff, Alexandra, author.

Series:

Jewish lives (New Haven, Conn.)

Jewish lives

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rand, Ayn.

Rand, Ayn--Criticism and interpretation.

Novelists, American--20th century--Biography.

Novelists, American.

Women philosophers--United States--Biography.

Women philosophers.

Philosophers--United States--Biography.

Philosophers.

Objectivism (Philosophy).

United States.

Genre:

Biographies

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xii, 239 pages : illustration ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2024]

Summary:

"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" -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Born Jewish

A second Columbus

Apprenticeship in Hollywood

Red decade

I versus we

The Fountainhead

Success

Atlas shrugged

The novelist-philosopher

Fame and influence.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-230) and index.

ISBN:

9780300253214

0300253214

OCLC:

1450575027