Interviews with intimates of the controversial writer, conducted and collected by oral historian and Ayn Rand Archives researcher McConnell.
More than 50 years after its publication, Atlas Shrugged (1957) remains a perennial bestseller, and Rand (1905–1982) continues to be both reviled and revered for her stance on the virtues of selfishness. Espousing a philosophy called Objectivism, she elevated rationality above all else, and argued that merit in the form of success for capitalists and great artists rendered them the rightful rulers of those she dismissed as parasitical for living off others’ accomplishments. This message is conveniently overlooked by many of her admirers interviewed here, although some acknowledge having fierce disagreements with her. Most cite her support of individualism in the face of conformity and convention as truly inspirational. McConnell includes a wide range of subjects, from Rand’s sister to early Hollywood connections, lawyers, economists, artists, celebrities and even her dentist. (Well-knowns include, among others, Mike Wallace, Mickey Spillane and Raquel Welch.) Accounts were factually corrected as needed and arranged in chronological eras for easy access. The author has an agenda, though: rectifying the prevailing impression of this towering intellect as a severe, humorless control freak. Readers are continually informed of Rand’s warmth, generosity, humor, openness to discourse and childlike delight in schlocky novels and music. We learn that she loved her cats, was terrific with children and collected stamps. The cumulative weight of the voices is convincing, however. Rand possessed a personality and charisma that charmed, fascinated and compelled attention, even adoration, and she impacted many lives. As her influence grows rather then wanes, it’s intriguing to investigate why her message resonates so powerfully.
Best suited for browsing, or as a companion to recent biographies, like Anne C. Heller’s Ayn Rand and the World She Made (2009).Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-451-23130-7
Page Count: 688
Publisher: NAL/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
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Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Categories: BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HOLOCAUST | HISTORY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL HISTORY
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