Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical

Author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand (19051982) is one of the most widely read philosophers of the twentieth century. Yet, despite the sale of over thirty million copies of her works, there have been few serious scholarly examinations of her thought. Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical provides a comprehensive analysis of the intellectual roots and philosophy of this controversial thinker.

It has been nearly twenty years since the original publication of Chris Sciabarras Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. Those years have witnessed an explosive increase in Rand sightings across the social landscape: in books on philosophy, politics, and culture; in film and literature; and in contemporary American politics, from the rise of the Tea Party to recent presidential campaigns. During this time Sciabarra continued to work toward the reclamation of the dialectical method in the service of a radical libertarian politics, culminating in his book Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism (Penn State, 2000).

In this new edition of Ayn Rand, Chris Sciabarra adds two chapters that present in-depth analysis of the most complete transcripts to date documenting Rands education at Petrograd State University. A new preface places the book in the context of Sciabarras own research and the recent expansion of interest in Rands philosophy. Finally, this edition includes a postscript that answers a recent critic of Sciabarras historical work on Rand. Shoshana Milgram, Rands biographer, has tried to cast doubt on Rands own recollections of having studied with the famous Russian philosopher N. O. Lossky. Sciabarra shows that Milgrams analysis fails to cast doubt on Rands recollectionsor on Sciabarras historical thesis.