Ayn Rand here sets for the the moral principles of Objectivism, the philosophy that holds man's life - the life proper to a rational being - as the standard of moral values and regards altruism as imcompatible with man's nature, with the creative requirements of his survival and with a free society. Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged, philosophically the most challenging bestseller in its time. Her first novel, We the Living, was published in 1936. With the publication of The Fountainhead in 1943, she achieved a spectacular and enduring success. Miss Rand's unique philosophy, Objectivism, has gained a worldwide audience. The fundamentals of her philosophy are set forth in four nonfiction books: Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, For the New Intellectual, The Virtue of Selfishness, and Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal. The magnificent statement of her artistic credo, The Romantic Manifesto, is also available in a Signet edition.

The Fountainhead , which became one of the most influential and widely read philosophical novels of the twentieth century, made Ayn Rand famous. An impassioned proponent of reason, rational self-interest, individualism, and laissez-faire capitalism, she expressed her unique views in numerous works of fiction and non-fiction that have been brought together for the first time in this one-of-a-kind volume.Containing excerpts from all her novels--including Atlas Shrugged, Anthem , and We The Living--The Ayn Rand Reader is a perfect introduction for those who have never read Rand, and provides teachers with an excellent guide to the basics of her viewpoint.

This book is intended for those who wish to assume the responsibility of becoming the new intellectuals. It contains the main philosophical passages from my novels and presents the outline of a new philosophical system.The full system is implicit in these excerpts (particularly in Galt’s speech), but its fundamentals are indicated only in the widest terms and require a detailed, systematic presentation in a philosophical treatise. I am working on such a treatise at present; it will deal predominantly with the issue which is barely touched upon in Galt’s speech: epistemology, and will present a new theory of the nature, source and validation of concepts. This work will require several years; until then, I offer the present book as a lead or a summary for those who wish to acquire an integrated view of existence. They may regard it as a basic outline; it will give them the guidance they need, but only if they think through and understand the exact meaning and the full implications of these excerpts.-- from Preface

Collection of letters from 1926 to 1981 from the philosopher and author Ayn Rand to a variety of famed authors, journalists, and politicians revealing key moments in her life while offering a look into her thoughts on writing, America, the Soviet Union, politics, and most of all, objectivism, a school of thought she created out of her life's experiences.

The private journals of one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, presented here in chronological order, reveal the progression of Rand's literary and philosophical ideals. 15,000 first printing.

In the 1930s, Ayn Rand was asked to adapt her first novel , We the Living , for the theatre. Her first statement against communism, it sold over 3 million copies. This edition contains two unpublished versions of the play (the latter entitled The Unconquered ), and is the first substantial piece of Rand's fiction to publish in over twenty years.

In the tumultuous late 60s and early 70s, a social movement known as the "New Left" emerged as a major cultural influence, especially on the youth of America. It was a movement that embraced "flower-power" and psychedelic "consciousness-expansion," that lionized Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro and launched the Black Panthers and the Theater of the Absurd. In Return Of The Primitive (originally published in 1971 as The New Left), Ayn Rand, bestselling novelist and originator of the theory of Objectivism, identified the intellectual roots of this movement. She urged people to repudiate its mindless nihilism and to uphold, instead, a philosophy of reason, individualism, capitalism, and technological progress. Editor Peter Schwartz, in this new, expanded version of The New Left, has reorganized Rand's essays and added some of his own in order to underscore the continuing relevance of her analysis of that period. He examines such current ideologies as feminism, environmentalism and multiculturalism and argues that the same primitive, tribalist, "anti-industrial" mentality which animated the New Left a generation ago is shaping society today. --