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Ayn Rand

Leonard Peikoff

The Journals of Ayn Rand Paperback – August 1, 1999

by Ayn Rand (Author), Leonard Peikoff (Author), David Harriman (Editor)

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Rarely has a writer and thinker of the stature of Ayn Rand afforded us access to her most intimate thoughts and feelings. From Journals of Ayn Rand, we gain an invaluable new understanding and appreciation of the woman, the artist, and the philosopher, and of the enduring legacy she has left us.Rand comes vibrantly to life as an untried screenwriter in Hollywood, creating stories that reflect her youthful vision of the world. We see her painful memories of communist Russia and her struggles to convey them in We the Living. Most fascinating is the intricate, step-by-step process through which she created the plots and characters of her two masterworks, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and the years of painstaking research that imbued the novels with their powerful authenticity. Complete with reflections on her legendary screenplay concerning the making of the atomic bomb and tantalizing descriptions of projects cut short by her death, Journals of Ayn Rand illuminates the mind and heart of an extraordinary woman as no biography or memoir ever could. On these vivid pages, Ayn Rand lives.

Print length

752 pages
Language

English
Publisher

NAL
Publication date

August 1, 1999
Dimensions

6 x 1.56 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0452278872
ISBN-13

978-0452278875
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Born February 2, 1905, Ayn Rand published her first novel, We the Living, in 1936. Anthem followed in 1938. It was with the publication of The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957) that she achieved her spectacular success. Rand’s unique philosophy, Objectivism, has gained a worldwide audience. The fundamentals of her philosophy are put forth in three nonfiction books, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, The Virtues of Selfishness, and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. They are all available in Signet editions, as is the magnificent statement of her artistic credo, The Romantic Manifesto.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ NAL; Reprint edition (August 1, 1999)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 752 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0452278872
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0452278875
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.75 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.56 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #797,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #694 in Philosopher Biographies
- #760 in Epistemology Philosophy
- #2,409 in Literary Diaries & Journals

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An Inside Look at a Brilliant Mind

Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2018

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Fascinating insight into a truly unique mind. These journals show the progression of Ayn Rand's thinking and the beginnings of her later polished conclusions. The writings cover her philosophical ideas as well as the background details for her various novels and span all the way back until her early twenties. Her fierce independence and unwavering focus on reality are apparent in all of her writings. These journals also demonstrate her ideas were not completed when she first started writing, rather they progressed and were steadily built throughout her life. The airtight logic demonstrated in her non-fiction works was an accumulation of years of thinking. There is also a lot of her thoughts on psychology and what leads different people to different conclusions and actions. I found all of the sections to be riveting.

There are some negative reviews based on these journals purportedly being incorrectly edited. I don't know any details of this but find it extremely unlikely given the fact there is a foreword by Leonard Peikoff and David Harriman was a very reputable source at the time of this publication, so I would not put much merit into those claims if you are considering reading these.

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romano pagliarani

and creation of new love instantly. Her intelligence is always in command and ...

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2015

Verified Purchase

I have read almost all the book, and honestly this is my first thought Ayn Rand is a remarkable complete writer, even though you haven't complete
her reading writing, you assert the incoming of values, integration, and creation of new love instantly. Her intelligence is always in command and resolving with clarity, or convey on a new assumption to express the philosophic contest. Rand brought a new open horizons to future to come, and
resolving pernicious plot I was so content to read her perception of Her Journals that, I was feeling on top of everything, felling so
recharge of energy that facilitated approach life and have more confidence, motivation to reach conclusions that, things were not intimidating like before.
.The Journals was e great inspiration and understanding of the greatness of Rand. There are reflections and conclusion that Rand philosophy is
a new open for new philosophic arena of the future to come. The new vision and Objectivism, create additional structure for society, and a great
amount of cultural education to explored and developed for the goodness od human being and society as well.

2 people found this helpful

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k100rs

Can't get enough.

Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2015

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Can't get enough of Ayn Rand, the greatest mind of the 20th century.

5 people found this helpful

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alt

Great Book

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2012

Verified Purchase

I bought this book to shut up all the people that were talking nonsense about Ayn Rand. It's a great resource to refer to when you are trying to make a point about Rand. The seller was honest and fast.

One person found this helpful

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A COLLECTION OF AYN RAND’S WRITINGS “TO HERSELF”: ABOUT HER BOOKS AND PHILOSOPHY

Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2019

Leonard Peikoff’s Foreword to this 1997 states, “Ayn Rand’s ‘Journals’---my name for her notes to herself through the decades----is the bulk of her still unpublished work, arranged chronologically. What remains to be published are two lecture courses on writing, presently being edited, and her old film scripts. The Journals contains most of AR’s notes for her three main novels… and some notes from her final decades… Aside from occasional pieces… the AR material in this book was written for herself, for her own clarity… nor did AR intend to publish it. Obviously, therefore, nothing in the book may be taken as definitive of her ideas… Despite its unedited character, however, the Journals is a treat to read, because it is the raw evidence of AR’s continuous growth … both as a philosopher and as an artist… in regard both to depth and to truth.”

In an early entry, Rand wrote, “Achievement is the aim of life. Life is achievement. The sense of achievement---breaking through obstacles… Achievement---give yourself an aim, something you WANT to do, then go after it, breaking through everything, with nothing in mind but you aim, all will, all concentration---and GET IT.” (Pg. 8)

In an early philosophic journal she began at age 29, she wrote, “I believe… that the worst curse on mankind is the ability to consider ideals as something quite abstract and detached from everyday life… I hold religion mainly responsible for this. I want to prove that religion breaks a character before it’s formed, in childhood, by teaching a child lies before he knows what a lie is, by breaking him of the habit of thinking before he has begun to think, by making him a hypocrite before he knows any other possible attitude toward life… Faith is the worst curse of mankind; it is the exact antithesis an enemy of thought… I want to be known as the greatest champion of reason and the greatest enemy of religion.” (Pg. 66-68)

In 1943, she wrote, “Altruism is spiritual cannibalism. If it is so wrong to eat another man’s body---why is it right to feed upon his soul for one’s survival? The man who wishes to live for others is merely confirming his inferiority. The infallible test of a man’s value is the degree of his indignation against the idea of compulsion and against the idea of being like others, of being unoriginal…Man is NOT his brother’s keeper… The altruist’s inevitable concern with the inferior---its reasons and results.” (Pg. 245)

In 1945, she wrote, “Not on altruism: in private and voluntary instances of help to another person (and this is only KINDNESS, not ALTRUISM) it works well ONLY when the recipient of help is a worthshile person… who is temporarily in need, purely through accident, not through his own nature. Such a person eventually gets back on his own feet and feels benevolence (or gratitude) toward the one who helped him. But when the recipient is essentially a ‘passive’ person, chronically in need through his own nature, the help of another gets him deeper into parasitism and has vicious results: he hates the benefactor. Therefore, here’s the paradox about ‘helping another’: one can only help those who don’t actually need it.” (Pg. 270-271)

She states, “Regarding the golden rule:… This is used in support of altruism. In that way, it would imply that you must give out to charity because you want to be an object of charity yourself. Or---you must sacrifice yourself to others because you want them to sacrifice themselves to you. Actually, the golden rule can work ONLY in application to MY morality: you do not sacrifice yourself to others and you do not wish them to sacrifice themselves to you…. You DO NOT WISH to live as an object of charity---and you do not hand charity out to others.” (Pg. 277)

In 1946, she argues, “There is no anonymous achievement. There is no collective creation. No step was taken anywhere… by a group of men working in unison under the guidance of a majority vote. Every step in the development of a great discovery bears the name of its originator. Behind the most complex of modern inventions… There was no collective achievement involved. There never has been. There never will be. There never can be. There is no collective brain.” (Pg. 310)

Of the atomic bomb project in WWII, she comments, “Now we come to the part played by the government. What was the most significant thing about it? The fact that the government did not attempt to run the bomb project. The government and the Army took orders from the scientists---not vice versa. The government provided the means---and let the scientists do the work as they wished… The part played by the government in the bomb project is not the part people advocate when they speak of government control. A government project is RUN by the government. A private industry controlled by government takes ORDERS from the government. This is the exact opposite of what happened on the bomb project.” (Pg. 323-324)

She asserts, “Men’s intellectual capacities have always been so unequal that to the thinkers the majority of their brothers have probably always seemed subhuman… We may still be in evolution, as a species, and living side by side with some ‘missing links’… We do not know to what extent the majority of man are no rational… But we do know that mankind as a whole and each man as an individual has a CHANCE to survive and succeed only to the degree of their general and individual intelligence.” (Pg. 466-467)

In 1946, she explains, “the idea of writing a philosophical non-fiction book bored me; in such a book, the purpose would actually be to teach others, to present my ideas to THEM. In a book of fiction the purpose is to create, for myself, the kind of world I want and to live in it while I am creating it; then, as a secondary consequence, to let others enjoy this world, and to the extent that they can.” (Pg. 479)

In 1953, she argues, “When we say that nobody actually believes in God, it is true, if by ‘belief’ we mean the equivalent of a rational conviction. But the … psychological ‘gimmick,’ of mystics is the fact that they do not ‘BELIEVE’ in reality, either… No, they do not ‘believe’ in God in the same way as they ‘believe’ in food, money or their material existence---but their material existence has no full reality for them, either---and THAT is some special state of consciousness, that is the root of the faking, the pretense, the going through an act, the unreality which I sense about most people and which I hate more than anything else, that is the form of their Death Premise, as if they do not merely wish to destroy existence, but have never even permitted existence to exist.” (Pg. 652)

In 1958, she wrote, “The real crux of this issue is that philosophy is primarily epistemology---the science of the means, the rules, and the methods of human knowledge. Epistemology is the base of all other sciences and one necessary for man because man is a being of volitional consciousness---a being who has to discover, not only the content of his knowledge, but also the means by which he is to acquire knowledge…. ‘Existence exists’ (or identity plus causality) is all there is to metaphysics. All the rest is epistemology.” (Pg. 699)

This book will be of keen interest to those studying Ayn Rand and Objectivism.

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