Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. She was born and the name given to her was Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum (Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум). Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. She had a play produced on Broadway in 1935 and 1936. Literary critics received Rand's fiction with mixed reviews and academia generally ignored or rejected her philosophy, though academic interest has increased in recent decades. Literary critics received Rand's fiction with mixed reviews and academia generally ignored or rejected her philosophy, though academic interest has increased in recent decades.

Although she rejected the labels "conservative" and "libertarian", Rand has had continuing influence on right-wing politics and libertarianism.

Rand called her philosophy "Objectivism", describing its essence as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute".

Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, was considered Rand's magnum opus. Rand described the theme of the novel as "the role of the mind in man's existence—and, as a corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest". It advocates the core tenets of Rand's philosophy of Objectivism and expresses her concept of human achievement.