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From her earliest years, Rand was a woman on a mission. Born Alisa Rosenbaum in 1905 to a bourgeois Jewish family in St. Petersburg, Rand was 12 when the Bolshevik Revolution took place. Her family, suddenly poor, was forced to flee, and Rand's hatred of communism and any sort of collectivism would guide her life. Arriving in the U.S. in 1926 with a new name, Ayn (rhymes with fine) made her way to Hollywood, where she had modest success as a screenwriter and married an aspiring actor, Frank O'Connor. Her politicization came when she and her husband worked...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Ayn Rand: Extremist or Visionary? | 10/12/2009 | See Source »

...Rand's success brought her thousands of fan letters. One of them, from Nathan Blumenthal, a 19-year-old freshman at UCLA, changed the 45-year-old novelist's life. The student became a member of the close-knit circle of her followers nicknamed the Collective, which included Greenspan. But before long, Blumenthal, by then named Nathaniel Branden, was her declared "intellectual heir." Writes Heller: "A month before her 50th birthday, she and Nathaniel received their partners' permission to meet for sex twice a week ... The affair provided excitement and deep fulfillment at a crucial, and essentially pleasureless, moment...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Ayn Rand: Extremist or Visionary? | 10/12/2009 | See Source »

...midst of the newly rekindled debate, two excellent biographies have just been published: Ayn Rand and the World She Made, by Anne C. Heller (Doubleday; 592 pages), is a comprehensive study, in novelistic detail, of Rand's personal life, and Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, by Jennifer Burns (Oxford; 369 pages), leans more heavily on Rand's theories and politics...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Ayn Rand: Extremist or Visionary? | 10/12/2009 | See Source »

...Fountainhead, an epic novel chronicling the struggles of an architect named Howard Roark against conventional values, was her breakout work. In her race to get the sprawling 700-page book to press, she began taking the amphetamine Benzedrine to fuel her efforts. "Rand used it to power her last months of work on the novel, including several 24-hour sessions correcting page proofs," writes Burns. The book brought Rand financial security and fame...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Ayn Rand: Extremist or Visionary? | 10/12/2009 | See Source »

Among the most enthusiastic readers of Rand's work were small-business owners. Writes Burns: "Although Rand spoke in the coded language of individualism, her business audience immediately sensed the political import of her ideas. Many correctly assumed that her defense of individualism was an implicit argument against expanded government and New Deal reforms." It's the same argument current objectivists have against the government's virtual takeover of the banks and the auto industry. As Burns notes, "Her novels touted anew by Rush Limbaugh, Rand was once more a foundation of the right-wing worldview...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Ayn Rand: Extremist or Visionary? | 10/12/2009 | See Source »

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