Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed [Paperback]

Marlene Podritske (Editor), Peter Schwartz (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 16, 2009

Readers and students of Ayn Rand will value seeing in this collection of interviews how Ayn Rand applied her philosophy and moral principles to the issues of the day. Objectively Speaking includes half a century of print and broadcast interviews drawn from the Ayn Rand Archives. The thirty-two interviews in this collection, edited by Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz, include print interviews from the 1930s and edited transcripts of radio and television interviews from the 1940s through 1981. Selections are included from a remarkable series of radio broadcasts over a four-year period (1962-1966) on Columbia University's station WKCR in New York City and syndicated throughout the United States and Canada. Ayn Rand's unusual and strikingly original insights on a vast range of topics are captured by prominent interviewers in the history of American television broadcasting, such as Johnny Carson, Edwin Newman, Mike Wallace, and Louis Rukeyser. The collection concludes with an interview of Dr. Leonard Peikoff on his radio program in 1999, recalling his 30-year personal and professional association with Ayn Rand and discussing her unique intellectual and literary achievements. Ayn Rand is the best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Anthem, and We the Living. Fifty years or more after publication, sales of these novels continue to increase.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Freelance writer Podritske and author Schwartz (The Foreign Policy of Self-Interest) have selected 32 lectures and interviews from the 60-year career of writer and conservative philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982), founder of objectivism, beginning with her first interview in 1923, on the Depression ("Americans... don't even know what a depression is"), when the Russian émigré had just sold her first story to Universal Studios. Rand's 1943 novel Fountainhead catapulted her to success (amplified by the release of a film version) that was solidified in 1957 by her 1100-page magnum opus Atlas Shrugged. Both novels and later non-fiction were conceived as vehicles for "objectivism," a laissez-faire world-view based around the ethics of "rational self-interest" (a more familiar iteration might be "Greed is Good"); among her followers were Leonard Peikoff and a young Alan Greenspan. Though she knew hers was "an extreme and unpopular viewpoint," she was a tireless advocate for "full, unregulated, uncontrolled capitalism," and a harsh opponent of conservatives who "tie their political views to religion." With transcripts from speeches, television appearances, radio shows and more, this will no doubt please Rand's fans and provide a great resource for students.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Author and philosopher Rand was generally reluctant to grant interviews because she thought they didn’t provide enough time and leeway to explain her philosophy of objectivism, that “reality exists as an objective absolute” that can be perceived through reason. After the success of The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), Rand did go on to grant several interviews. This collection of 32 print interviews and transcripts of radio and television interviews from the 1940s until 1981 offers a fascinating conversation on objectivism, though Rand herself continually refers to her novels for a more in-depth perspective. Part 1 of this collection includes Rand’s first-known interview at age 27 and focuses on her life as a Russian immigrant; part 2 features interviews at Columbia University from 1962 to 1966; part 3 features several televised interviews, including talks with Mike Wallace in 1959 and Rand’s last public appearance in an interview with Louis Rukeyser in 1981. Given her influence on American culture, including the thinking of former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, readers will find this a particularly topical review of Rand’s highly individualistic philosophy. --Vanessa Bush --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 282 pages
• Publisher: Lexington Books (January 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0739131958
• ISBN-13: 978-0739131954
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,306,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #33 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( R ) > Rand, Ayn

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine Introduction to Rand's thought, February 4, 2009

By 

Paul Beaird "Disciple of Causation" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed (Paperback)

This book, published some 26 years after Ayn Rand's death, was not intended to be an introduction to her philosophical thought, but it turns out to be just that.
After the publication of her inspiring novel Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, novelist and philosopher, was invited many times to be interviewed on television, at universities, and on radio. The audio and video versions of those interviews have long been available from scattered sources. Here they are gathered togerher and edited by the excellent hands of Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz (former Chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute, www.aynrand.org).
The editors include 3 interviews of Ayn Rand in her early days in America, while in the movie industry, which have not been available before. The "On Campus" interviews are organized by subject, covering Rand's Objectivist philosophy vx. Conservatism, the topid of "extremism", anti-capitalist myths, Rand's view on the American Constitution and the political structure of a free society. She speaks on a quiet subject that is coming to make all the difference in this country, objective law. She speaks on what should be America's free press, education, her views on Romantic literature vs. Naturalism, the visual arts, her favorite play and paintings (some surprises here!). She advances a theory of humor, then gets into the heavier areas of ethics, its foundations, its sabotage by altruism, individual rights as the bridge to politics. The last section of the book, offering interviews from 1959 up to 1981, just a few months before her death, includes interviews with Mike Wallace, Professonr James McConell at University of Michigan, two on the Johnny Carson show, in which he shows himself to be a gentleman and much more than a comedian, Edwin Newman of Speaking Freely, James Day, Raymond Newman and Louis Rukeyser, the financial advisor. The book finishes with an interview of Ayn Rand's intellectual heir, Leonard Peikoff, not only a teacher of philosophy but a philosopher himself (see his work on the foundation of induction) by his wife, Amy Peikoff.
Not included are Rand's famous Playboy interview and a few others published elsewhere. One does not get anything in this book on Rand's metaphysics or epistemology, but those are technical issues that would not come up in such a venue.
We can be thankful for this look into Rand's self-confident speaking style, her thoughtful and alert response to unscripted questions. For an introduction to Rand's views on art, politics and her presentation of her revolutionary ethics, this book can serve as a way to get someone who has only heard of her started in an exploration of the philosophical mind of this amazing woman. For those who are quite familiar with her published writings, I have to tell you that you will find some unexpected nuggets of her thought that you don't find elsewhere. A good addition to The Ayn Rand Library.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intellectual tour de force, February 4, 2009

By 

Cloud Downey "Rand fan" (Crystal Lake, IL - USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed (Paperback)

I'm half way through this fascinating new book edited by Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz. It is a collection of interviews covering the time period from the 1940s through 1981. This intellectual tour de force covers a wide range of subjects. AR's laser focus and lighting quick logic are revealed in a manner that makes me marvel at her ability and appreciate her from a new vantage point. Buy it!

5.0 out of 5 stars Ayn Rand's Answers to Today's Problems, March 10, 2010

By 

Russell W. Shurts (Centennial, CO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed (Hardcover)

If you are like me and would like to know how the greatest defender of reason and rights of our time, Ayn Rand, would have responded to much of what is going on today, then you are in luck. In this collection of interviews Ayn Rand did over a span of approximately 45 years she answers questions on virtually any philosophically substantive topic you can imagine. In so doing, you find out what she would have thought about the on-going trends in esthetics, politics, ethics and epistemology that are causing such misery in the world today. But better still, as she always did in every question ever posed to her, she provides alternative solutions that will make sense to anyone interested in pursuing truth.