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This collection of essays was the last work planned by Ayn Rand before her death in 1982. In it, she summarizes her view of philosophy and deals with a broad spectrum of topics.
According to Ayn Rand, the choice we make is not whether to have a philosophy, but which one to have: rational, conscious, and therefore practical; or contradictory, unidentified, and ultimately lethal.
Written with all the clarity and eloquence that have placed Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy in the mainstream of American thought, these essays range over such basic issues as education, morality, censorship, and inflation to prove that philosophy is the fundamental force in all our lives.
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand (1905–1982) wrote the bestselling novels The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957) and founded the philosophy known as objectivism. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Rand taught herself to read at the age of six and soon resolved to become a professional writer. In 1926, she left Communist Russia to pursue a screenwriting career in Hollywood, and she published her first novel ten years later. With her next book, the dystopian novella Anthem (1938), she introduced the theme that she would devote the rest of her life to pursuing: the inevitable triumph of the individual over the collective.
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