Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (1ST ed.)
Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (1ST ed.)
Contributor(s): Burns, Jennifer (Author)
Oxford: 2011
Paperback
9780199832484
ISSI Conference: Women on the Right in U.S. History (2/28/2026)
Drawing on unprecedented access to Rand's private papers and the original, unedited versions of Rand's journals, Jennifer Burns offers a groundbreaking reassessment of this key cultural figure, examining her life, her ideas, and her impact on conservative political thought. Burns highlights the two facets of Rand's work that make her a perennial draw for those on the right: her promotion of capitalism, and her defense of limited government. Both sprang from her early, bitter experience of life under Communism, and became among the most deeply enduring of her messages, attracting a diverse audience of college students and intellectuals, business people and Republican Party activists, libertarians and conservatives. The book also traces the development of Rand's Objectivist philosophy and her relationship with Nathaniel Branden.
Biographical Note:
Jennifer Burns is Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University. A nationally recognized authority on Rand and conservative thought, she has discussed her work on The Daily Show and Book TV and has been interviewed on numerous radio programs.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Part I. The Education of Ayn Rand, 1905-1943
Ch. 1. From Russia to Roosevelt
Ch. 2. Individualists of the World, Unite!
Ch. 3. A New Credo of Freedom
Part II. From Novelist to Philosopher, 1944-1957
Ch. 4. The Real Root of Evil
Ch. 5. A Round Universe
Part III. Who Is John Galt? 1957-1968
Ch. 6. Big Sister is Watching You
Ch. 7. Radicals for Capitalism
Ch. 8. Love is Exception Making
Part IV. Legacies
Ch. 9. It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand
Epilogue Ayn Rand in American Memory
Notes
Essay on Sources
Bibliography