Groundwork

After getting into an Ayn Rand-inspired argument at the bar a while ago, I decided I didn't know/remember enough about Rand and her works to win a fight well. So I recently read Jennifer Burns' Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (OUP, 2009). Not sure I agree with the NYT quote on the cover, "groundbreaking," (I need to dig up the review and get the context) but certainly super easy reading and mildly interesting. It's the first Rand biography I've read, obviously, but it didn't feel like there was anything that new here. But probably I just don't know enough about what was already out there. It was also interesting reading something written more or less pre-Tea Party movement (it's not even mentioned); I feel like it might be a much longer, if not very different, book if she wrote or revised it today.

In several cases, throughout the book and especially in describing Rand's legacy, Burns does not give her readers adequate signposts as to time - years and or relative passage of time. In other instances she talks about famous "disciples" (my skepticism, not her words) of Rand's who later had prominent positions. The problem is, if you're not - as I am not - well-acquainted with leading conservatives and/or somewhat recent political history, the names don't automatically indicate the time period. Especially with all the 80s and early 90s stuff, it's too recent for me to have learned much about it in school, as history, but I was too young to really remember it (or to have been paying attention).