Ayn Rand: A New Opportunity To Personally Judge the Facts of Reality

Brian Doherty | June 6, 2007

Some welcome Ayn Rand glasnost, from an estate that is famously pretty restrictive in who they allow to see what when it comes to the treasures of Randiana in its possession: a free online archive is now available of many of the Russian emigre libertarian novelist's lectures, both in audio and video form.

No one talks Rand like Rand, as they say, and though registration is necessary, that's a small bit of value-for-value for this nifty collection of 20th century libertarian, literary, and philosophical history.

You can find an intellectual and personal biography of Rand and her movement within the pages of, ahem, my own new book Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement , a history in which she is, of course, a central figure.

Rand's centennial was noted in the pages of reason back in March 2005 with a perspicacious and controversial essay by Cathy Young on the appeal, limits, and paradoxes of the Objectivist queen, and a varied and wild collection of data points exhibiting how Rand has influenced the culture.