Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right [Hardcover]

Jennifer Burns (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 19, 2009

Worshipped by her fans, denounced by her enemies, and forever shadowed by controversy and scandal, the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand was a powerful thinker whose views on government and markets shaped the conservative movement from its earliest days. 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.

Goddess of the Market follows Rand from her childhood in Russia through her meteoric rise from struggling Hollywood screenwriter to bestselling novelist, including the writing of her wildly successful The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. 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, her closest intellectual partner, with whom she had an explosive falling out in 1968.

One of the Denver Post's Great Reads of 2009

One of Bloomberg News's Top Nonfiction Books of 2009

"Excellent."
--Time magazine

"A terrific book--a serious consideration of Rand's ideas, and her role in the conservative movement of the past three quarters of a century."
--The American Thinker

"A wonderful book: beautifully written, completely balanced, extensively researched. The match between author and subject is so perfect that one might believe that the author was chosen by the gods to write this book. She has sympathy and affection for her subject but treats her as a human being, with no attempt to cover up the foibles."
--Mises Economics Blog

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ayn Rand's most famous books, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, continue to sell in the hundreds of thousands every year,decades after they were issued. She was a significant influence on Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Craigslist's Craig Newman. Rand remains many things to many people since her death in 1982, as she did throughout her prickly, anxiety-laced, amphetamine- and nicotine-fueled life. This biography and critique is exasperatingly detailed and slow-going at times. But what University of Virginia historian Burns does well is to explicate the evolution of Rand's individualist worldview, placing her within the context of American conservative and libertarian thought: from H.L. Mencken to William Buckley and later the Vietnam War—her opposition to it drove most conservatives crazy. Burns does not give short shrift to the men in Rand's life: her longtime husband, Frank O'Connor, and intellectual partner and lover, Nathaniel Branden. Overall, this contributes to an understanding of a complex life in relation to American conservatism. 12 b&w photos. (Oct.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Critics greeted Burns's work enthusiastically because, in the opinion of most, no one had yet authored a biography of Rand that objectively treated the woman independent of her philosophy of "objectivism." Reviews tended to focus on the psychological profile of Rand as the strongest feature of this work, but they were divided on the strength of Burns's analysis of Rand's impact on American thought. All felt that Burns, a scholar of the conservative movement, had made a good start evaluating that impact. But as Johann Hari's review for Slate.com suggests, perhaps the best way to understand the legacy of books like Atlas Shrugged in the United States would be not to inspect Rand's life, but to inspect the unique aspects of American culture that made her so popular.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (October 19, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195324870
• ISBN-13: 978-0195324877
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.2 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #236,575 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( R ) > Rand, Ayn

More About the Author

Jennifer Burns is an Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University, where she teaches courses on American political, cultural, and intellectual history. She graduated from Harvard University magna cum laude majoring in History, and received her Masters and PhD in History from the University of California at Berkeley.

Professor Burns is the author of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (Oxford University Press), an intellectual biography of the controversial novelist and philosopher. Based on exclusive access to Rand's personal papers, Goddess of the Market is the only book to draw upon Rand's unedited letters and journals. It has been favorably reviewed by numerous publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, the Economist, and the New Yorker.

A popular guest on radio and television programs, Professor Burns has been interviewed on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, C-Span's Book TV, NPR's Weekend America, and Here & Now. She has also written articles for Harvard Magazine, Foreign Policy, the Christian Science Monitor, and several academic journals.

Professor Burns also enjoys speaking before academic and professional organizations. She has been a guest lecturer at Harvard, Columbia Business School, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, Rice University, and the Cato Institute.

Podcast lectures for Professor Burns' course, Introduction to U.S. History from 1865, are available on iTunes and have attracted an appreciative worldwide audience. The lectures are available at iTunes.Berkeley.edu and can be found by searching "History 7b" in the Social Sciences section.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

254 of 284 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Sets a New Standard for Books on Rand October 15, 2009

By Gordon Burkowski

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

For the first time, a book on Ayn Rand has been published which does not come from the Objectivist inner circle; which is of general interest; and which is written by an impartial scholar.

The book marshalls a remarkable amount of information: Professor Burns has consulted 18 collections at 10 archives - and was given access to the Ayn Rand Archives themselves. She has read, audited, or conducted 89 interviews. She also cites more than 200 books in her bibliography, and there are 48 pages of footnotes for those who want to know the exact sources for her information. The book examines Ayn Rand's work and ideas closely; but it also traces their many connections with and influences upon America's political and cultural right wing. If scholars who come after her wish to be taken seriously, they will really have to do their homework - as she has.

Burns is a historian, not a philosopher - and she approaches Rand from a historian's viewpoint. As a historian, she shows the influence that Rand's ideas have had on the right wing of American politics; but - also as a historian - she shows how Rand's personality and character affected the way that message was received. If you disregard either the person or the ideas, you're not writing good history. Burns gives full attention to both aspects of her subject in this book.

Still more importantly, what this book gives back to Ayn Rand is context. Many Objectivists have withdrawn into a self-referential, self-ghettoizing circle where every word of Ayn Rand is viewed as inerrant and one takes note of cultural or intellectual trends in the wider world only in order to express one's contempt for it all. Many people attribute the same sort of intellectual solipsism to Rand - and during the last ten years of her life, this may not have been that far from the truth. But in the period up to 1970, Burns does an excellent job of documenting Rand's connections with many, many people on America's intellectual and political right wing. The connections weren't always friendly; but they were there. At the end of this book, a reader will understand how Ayn Rand fits into the story of America's culture and politics between 1930 and the present - and will understand this far better than he or she did at the book's beginning. It's an impressive achievement.

No review of this book, however, would be complete without commenting on Burns's "Essay on Sources". This is the part of any book that many readers don't bother with. That would be a real mistake this time. For Burns makes it clear in her Essay that the majority of the books published posthumously under Ayn Rand's name have been edited - changed, smoothed over and sanitized - without any indication within the texts themselves that such changes have happened.

The "Journals of Ayn Rand" comes in for especially heavy criticism. Chris Sciabarra raised concerns ten years ago about possible tampering with the texts of Ayn Rand's journals. He has been proven right, and with a vengeance. Burns reports that "On nearly every page of the published journals, an unacknowledged change has been made from Rand's original writing." She notes that in many cases, the editing "serves to signficantly alter Rand's meaning." She observes: "Even more alarming are the sentences and proper names present in Rand's originals that have vanished entirely without any ellipses or brackets to indicate a change."

Professor Burns concludes: "The 'Journals of Ayn Rand' are thus best understood as an interpretation of Rand rather than her own writing. Scholars must use these materials with extreme caution. They serve as a useful introduction to Rand's development and a guide to the available archival material, but they should not be accepted at face value." She adds that "Similar problems plague 'Ayn Rand Answers' (2005), 'The Art of Fiction' (2000), 'The Art of Non-Fiction' (2001), and 'Objectively Speaking' (2009). These books are derived from archival materials but have been significantly rewritten." Coming from a scholar, a more damning indictment could hardly be imagined.

It may well be that those who issued these books convinced themselves that they were acting in the best interests of Rand and her intellectual legacy: after all, English was not Rand's first language and Burns notes that there are awkward phrasings throughout the unedited journals. But as Rand herself never tired of pointing out, faking reality is in no one's best interest. What we have here is a major failure of stewardship on the part of those entrusted with Ayn Rand's literary estate.

So far, at many of the most militant Objectivist websites, there has been virtually no response to any of this. The silence is deafening. That's pretty depressing. Make no mistake about it: an editor who handled Thoreau's journals or Melville's journals the way Rand's journals have been handled would be committing professional suicide. At many universities or research institutions, he or she would risk dismissal. This is a Very Big Deal.

One of the more encouraging things reported by Burns is the professionalism and dedication to truth of those now working at the Ayn Rand Archives. That is a positive sign. It may mean that at some point in future we will have a complete, uncensored, scholarly edition of Ayn Rand's journals. But for now, those who edited five or more of Rand's posthumously published works will have to face the fact that the credibility of these books has been fatally compromised.

75 of 81 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A major influence in a major part of my life -- but it's good not to be an objectivist! August 3, 2010

By Jan R. Schulman

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I just finished reading this book; i could not put it down. however that may be because AR and Objectivism played such a big part in my life at a very important time in my life and this is the first book i have read that seems to actually be 'objective' about AR and her followers.

with my then-husband, we operated and ran the los angeles chapter of NBI in the 60's. when the 'break' with the brandon's occurred, we were astonished to find that unless we 'sided' with AR, we were excommunicated (their words). we refused to side with anyone. after that we were not even allowed to subscribe to the publications of AR and her cohorts. it was truly heartbreaking; we were being asked to take sides without knowing anything about anything except that AR had denounced NB. we could not do that, and so we were kicked out of an organization that we had been steadfastly loyal to for a number of years.

that is not to say that NB was such a saint either; he did his share of humiliating and abusing those who he felt were 'less' than he; even to the point of admitting to us one day that yes, he and AR did believe, as did Nietszche, that there were those who were 'more deserving' than others; more worthy of life, more elite. they believed in a hierarchy which allocated a special level of entitlement. AR and NB being a part of, if not THE, hierarchy of course. this said while sprawled on our sofa, chewing on radishes. he could be a charmer, but he could be a SOB just as easily.

by then, i was heading out the door and out of the realm of objectivism. i learned a lot from both AR and NB (i truly liked barbara and found her to be a classy, warm woman who did not need to intimidate and humiliate others in order to feel good about herself). they were my education and taught me how to think --- for myself. i had to pull away from them because they were poison to a young person trying to find her way in the world. i felt that my very soul was in danger of being completely sabotaged. it was their way or 'the highway' --- meaning: you were irrational, unethical, immoral --- not worthy of existing. on the other hand, they also gave me the greatest tools in the world --- how to think about thinking. how to approach ideas in a rational manner. and how to NOT let myself ever, ever, ever again be dragged into a cult such as objectivism had become.

AR was a brilliant, angry, disturbed, troubled woman. i loved her and loathed her. most especially, i loathed 'the movement' and all that it represented. a great example: one time i had worked for NB doing secretarial services for him (after the break) in l.a. i had typed up a letter he dictated, signed the letter (he was out of town) and mailed it. he came to our house the following saturday morning when my husband and i were having breakfast and still in our robes. he sat down, had coffee and then expressed his extreme displeasure with me. "You used an exclamation point in the letter!" he practically screamed at me. "What?" I responded, stunned and confused. "You used an exclamation point! Do you know what an exclamation point is?" "Well, it signifies an important statement, one that is strongly felt." "It's a scream!" he barked at me. "And that tells me something about YOUR psycho-epistomology."

I looked at him like he was crazy. (i actually thought he was.) "But you said you had never been so happy in your entire life. i thought it was deserving of an exclamation point." i said. "it was a strong statement and it was about your feelings and it was an exclamation." he went on to state that he was horrified and embarrassed beyond belief that that letter was sent with that piece of punctuation in it. that was when i realized, fully and clearly, as if a light went on in my head, that he and AR and everyone around them, were so full of their own self-worth (actually so full of crap) that they had lost sight of everything rational. that was when i became not only an ex-objectivist, but practically an anti-objectivist. i let NB know what i thought of his opinion and especially his nerve in blustering his way into our apartment only to insult me, while drinking my coffee (feel free to laugh). (i made really good coffee...smiles...) a few days later he apologized to me, but by then, i didn't care what he thought.

i have no doubt that both BB and NB have changed considerably in their methods of dealing with people since 'those days.' but nowhere near as much as I have. i threw off the yoke, the heavy burden, of trying to conform to all of the guidelines of objectivism and finally became my own, my authentic self.

i highly recommend this book for those who have read AR's books and especially those who were involved with Objectivism in the 60's. it kind of puts things in place and doesn't take sides or kneel down in abject adoration of its subject. it's a refreshing and clean read. and it helped me with a lot of my sad feelings about 'that time' in my life. Jan Richman Schulman (prev in l.a.: Jan Crosby)

55 of 64 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good overview November 3, 2009

By Andrew Berschauer

Format:Hardcover

I picked up "Goddess of the Market" primarily because "The Fountainhead" is one of my favorite books. I have to say that I found Burns' work to be more interesting than any biography has a right to be.

Having read the 1-3 star reviews here, I'm left wondering if a reader's more extensive knowledge of Ayn Rand and her philosophy, Objectivism, becomes a disservice in trying to read what one of these reviewers correctly labels a Reader's Digest version of Rand.

These reviewers are also correct that the work is not so much analysis and interpretation as a regurgitation of facts around Rand's life, relationships, and belief system. For the uninitiated such as myself, the regurgitation will naturally not come across as a repetition of well-known events. I can see that if the author is claiming "never before seen sources" as input to the work that there would be unmet expectations among the more knowledgeable, but for me the survey level was just fine. I take issue, though, with the complaints that the book (a) is laced with negative renderings of Rand and Objectivism, and (b) characterizes Objectivism as indistinguishable from "the right" or "the GOP". In this, perhaps because I'm less sensitive to it through distance from the philosophy, I thought Burns was extremely fair.

Were there negative statements about Rand and/or her behavior and/or her philosophy? Certainly, but there were also some very strongly worded positive statements. Did Burns imply/state that Objectivism influenced the development of "the Right"? Yes, but as a reader Burns also left me with the impression that Rand did not align her philosophy with others - she came across personally as extraordinarily consistent in her beliefs and behaviors through most of her actively influential years and, for example, refused to yield to the William F Buckleys of the new conservative right where she saw them going astray.

That said, the book did produce some lingering negatives for me. While Objectivism as a philosophy (based on my very limited understanding) advocates admirable overarching values, Rand and her tangible execution of Objectivism are portrayed as excessively pedantic, dogmatic and rigid. One reviewer doesn't argue with this portrayal; rather, says this is because she (and her inner circle) didn't truly live the principles of Objectivism. Here I believe we're splitting hairs - when any philosophy is used not as a set of guidelines; rather, as a user's manual for your life as Rand is portrayed as wanting her philosophy to be applied, it becomes difficult - perhaps unfairly - to separate the human error from the philosophical error. This is not unique to Objectivism. The difference from other philosophies, I suppose, is that Rand is shown to have been quick and merciless in culling the herd for these transgressions, allowing little dissent and tolerating no missteps. This doesn't appear to live up to the ideals of individualism to me; this seems like Orwell's 1984.

I leave "Goddess of the Market" impressed with Ayn Rand for her stalwart adherence to her personal convictions, and her energy and ambition in articulating her philosophy and extending its reach and influence through dogged determination. I also leave with the belief that Objectivism (or its tangible execution) sets the idealism bar too high for mere mortals to live their lives by in any meaningfully adherent way.